“why is waiting such a part of spirituality?”
Tyler Staton asks this thought-provoking question
and it made me wonder why waiting
is such a part of the human experience, generally.
even beyond spirituality, we see this practically:
on our roads, with road rage and speeding
in our work, with outcomes and profit
in our lives, with status and milestones.
we have been conditioned to believe
that waiting is a waste of time.
we are so time-bound
that we believe everything
should operate within
the time boundaries we set.
in this sense, we try to make time
subject to our pre-defined limits.
but time is not subjective, and we set
ourselves up for disappointment
when we place conditions on time.
that which is very much
outside of our control.
when we expect certain
things by a certain time
we may get frustrated
when our desired timing
doesn’t align to the reality.
we aren’t conditioned
to be comfortable
with the “in-between”
that liminal space
where waiting exists.
the holy ground between
“what is” and “what will be”
but in that holy space
is the promise.
that is the sacredness
of waiting.
will we hold onto hope?
will we be patient in the waiting?
trusting God to fulfil his promises?
believing in His plan and purpose for us?
.
if we ask ourselves why
waiting is a part of our reality
we must also ask ourselves:
why would our consumerist culture
want to eliminate the need for waiting?
selling us convenience
that we may not learn patience
selling us efficiency and productivity
that we may not learn stillness.
.
while it may be tempting to question
why waiting is a part of our experience.
we must not draw the conclusion
that waiting is a waste of time.
what if waiting wasn’t a consequence of:
a broken system
a delayed timeline
an unwanted season
what if waiting is an intentional design for humanity?
and why might God
have designed us this way?
might waiting be an invitation:
to look to Him?
to wait on Him?
temporal waiting seasons
there have been many
waiting seasons in my life.
each holding their own tension
as i wrestled with an unknown future.
not knowing the answers
unclear on the direction
expectant for God to work
unsure if He would act
surrendering to His will
questioning His timing.
the thing about waiting
is that it can’t exist
without an object of desire:
behind patience is a pursuit
behind waiting is what we are waiting for
we can be waiting on something
abstract or concrete.
we may be waiting for “success”,
a state or feeling of fulfilment in life.
or we may be waiting for answers
to tests, to job interviews, you name it.
i was reflecting on the nature of waiting
and what, in the past, i have been waiting on
and i started to identify this connection
between my longings and waiting seasons.
when certain longings were awakened in me
for example, a longing for love, this led me
to a season of waiting, a season of singleness.
even before marriage, once i had fallen in love,
i started to notice within me a longing for family
a longing to bring new life into this world.
often, these waiting seasons were temporal,
preceded by the fulfilment of a longing,
proceeded by a pursuit of a new desire.
.
there can be many types of longings in life
but as soon as we allow ourselves
to indulge in, to entertain, our longings,
to dwell and acknowledge our desires,
we can unknowingly start to hope
that one day we might behold that desire.
when we start hoping, we enter
into a season of expectation,
an anticipation for a future outcome.
we must, however, be careful
to what extent we behold
these temporal desires.
for these desires may offer us
temporal satisfaction in their fulfilment.
but this satisfaction does not last
it is a counterfeit fulfilment.
for only God can satisfy
our deepest longings.
anything else
will leave us empty.
we will always want more.
we will continue pursuing
counterfeit fulfilment.
waiting for that which is
not worth waiting for and
does not offer eternal value.
.
when i reflected on these themes and
explored this notion of longing i realised:
longings are hope we give a voice too
we etch them into our mental frames
translating them into a secret code
the language of the heart, of desire.
our longings whisper to us
of something more.
there is this calling to live
for a purpose, a meaning
beyond one’s self.
but our longings
cannot be “for more”
in order to be
complete or whole.
temporal longings
will provide
temporal fulfilment.
but eternal longing
will lead to eternal life.
we will not find
wholeheartedness
this side of eternity
by indulging our
temporal longings.
we will only find wholeness
in the emptying of our own longings.
that we might be able to receive
the weight, the worth, of Longing himself.
for the glory of God
is His weight and worth.
which we cannot hold onto
if we are holding onto anything else.
our longings may be godly
but our longings must be
from Him and for Him
if we are to find ourselves:
satisfied in our longings
content in our circumstance
patient in our affliction
accepting of our waiting seasons
patience in the waiting
patience is one of those fruits
that you may see in your life
only after seasons of waiting.
the challenge is learning how
to be still, rest, and relinquish control
in the waiting seasons of life.
instead of leaning on our own understanding,
our own desire and longings as time signatures,
we are to lean into God in our waiting seasons.
the invitation is not to
fill the silence with noise,
or occupy the waiting
with engineering efficiency.
.
seasons of silence are not
seasons of divine absence
silence is an invitation
to be still and know God –
the kind of knowing, trusting
and waiting that reclaims:
the darkest of nights
the blurriest of days
the heaviest of burdens
the deepest of traumas
the emptiest of desires
the scariest of unknowns
.
seasons of waiting
are invitations to
be still and to know God.
[psalm 46:10]
to spend time
in His presence.
to wait on Him, as the Psalmist, and
as saints before us have discovered:
“wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord.”
[psalm 27:14]
we are to direct our longing
to Him, that our hearts may
learn to pursue and desire Him.
we wait on the Lord
because we know
He is a God who:
delivers
redeems
rescues
speaks
responds
hears
loves
sees
intercedes
gives life
leads
protects
provides
nothing and no-one else
can meet our needs.
nothing and no-one else
is worthy of our waiting.
.
so how do we wait on the Lord?
the fruit doesn’t appear overnight
so how do we learn to be patient
when we don’t understand God’s timing?
“the Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise
as some count slowness, but is patient toward you,
not wishing that any should perish,
but that all should reach repentance”.
[2 peter 3:9]
here, Peter speaks to the disconnect
that may arise in our perception of time.
God is not slow to fulfil his promise
yet, when we are waiting on that fulfilment
we can start to get impatient with God.
we want to see answers
we don’t want to wait
we lack the fruit of patience
but without the waiting
we may not receive the promise.
if we try to do things on our own terms,
or in our own timing, then we are not
allowing God to bring to fulfilment His plan.
if we want to remain in His promises and plan,
if we want to see His hand, His favour:
then we need to learn patience.
we learn from another Peter below, that
patience is not just a fruit, but a discipline:
“teach us, O Lord, the disciplines of patience,
for to wait is often harder than to work.”
[peter marshall]
waiting is often harder than working.
being still is harder than striving.
b u t
the eternal satisfaction found in God
is far greater than the struggle to
surrender and abandon all other longings.
you will notice the language
of patience as a discipline.
Dallas Willard also refers
to spiritual disciplines.
John Mark Comer calls
them spiritual practices.
these are areas of our life that we can actively
align to God’s plan and purpose for us.
these are also areas of our lives where there
may be a temptation to do things our own way.
while Dallas Willard does not name
patience itself as a spiritual discipline,
patience is an unspoken foundation
to all of the ‘disciplines of abstinence’:
solitude
silence
fasting
frugality
chastity
secrecy
sacrifice
[the spirit of the disciplines]
none of these disciplines can be practiced
if one does not know the art of patience.
.
patience requires the absence
of longing for anything and anyone
other than God and God alone.
patience requires the practice
of disciplines of abstinence
training oneself to behold God
and not to hold onto this world.
the beauty of emptying oneself
is that by deserting all longings
that do not belong to God, and
are not from God, we find ourselves
not empty, but filled with God himself.
an eternal waiting season
in the waiting seasons
we learn to trust
not in our own plans
or our own timelines
but in God’s timing.
God’s timing is something
our time-bounded existence
cannot fathom or understand.
if we dared to believe, to imagine
what God’s timing may reveal –
we would be humbled, no doubt.
.
the tricky part about patience
in the waiting seasons of life
is this discrepancy between
our desired timing and God’s.
what do we know of God’s timing?
God is often waiting for the “right” moment,
defined by eternal significance and bearing.
if He was to act in advance of His plan and purpose, like
we read in 2 Peter, there would be eternal consequences.
for God, it is not only seconds, minutes,
hours, days at stake … it is souls.
God’s heart and timing is revealed in this passage in 2 Peter, for His desire
is that none should perish, and that all would have the opportunity to respond.
this is a radical reframing
of “why” we may be in
waiting seasons in our lives.
.
God is not delaying.
God is not ignoring
our hearts, our prayers.
His timing is in His hands.
.
N. T. Wright says that the context for this passage in 2 Peter
is that some in the early church were starting to to ask
questions as to whether Jesus’ was returning again soon.
the Jewish people at this point were so used to waiting,
they had been for 400 years, ever since the Babylonian exile,
asking ‘Lord, when are you going to act?’. and the answer was
always, to wait patiently, because God will do as he promised.
waiting patiently is easier said than done
when you don’t know if the waiting is in vain.
but God has asked His people all
throughout Scriptures to wait on Him.
we do not wait in vain, but wait in the knowledge and assurance
that He is a God of His word, a God who keeps His promises.
we must trust Him, that He will provide the guidance, wisdom
and direction we need, at the time we need, which is usually later
than when we want it. in the same way, the new creation will come
in God’s good time. not when we want it, but according to His will.
.
in this way, eternal re-framing is fundamental to waiting well.
one of the only things that has given me a glimpse of hope
in the midst of turbulence and infertility, and this
waiting season of longing to bring life into this world,
was a revelation God put on my heart about His ways.
i realised, that God is working at a macro scale,
while i only have a micro lens to see with.
God is working in the hearts
and souls of all humanity.
His plan and purpose go beyond human experience,
to the reality of life and death for all humanity.
what gave me hope and peace was knowing that
Jesus is coming back. He will return. and we don’t
know the hour or day. but. it would make sense,
that God would want my focus to be on His kingdom,
on the great commission He has given to us.
God would not want us to be so distracted
and disheartened in the temporal, that we miss out
on partaking and witnessing His kingdom work.
what if Jesus is returning?
what if God did not want me to bring life
into a world set for destruction?
my husband countered my thinking
by saying He believes God would still
want us to bring life into this world,
even if “the end” was near, because that
would represent another soul for the kingdom.
which is very true.
but all of this to say, this re-framing, turning
towards a kingdom vision, an eternal perspective,
was one of the only comforts in my affliction.
it just goes to show that
we do not know the big why.
we do not know what else
may be a factor in God’s timing.
.
another great comfort was to see evidence
of God’s timing having an eternal weighting
in the story of Mary and Elizabeth in Luke 1.
we know that Elizabeth was in a waiting season,
similar to mine, struggling with barrenness.
why did God make her wait?
we find an eternal framing, and design, etched
into the timeline of Elizabeth’s son, John the Baptist,
and Mary’s Son, Jesus of Nazareth.
this timeline is not by coincidence, but by design.
we see God executing a parallel plan, with His
divine timing for them to raise children together.
Elizabeth was waiting on the Lord, and probably had
lost hope in her waiting season, that she would bear life
… only for her Son to usher forth the ministry of the Messiah.
isn’t that wild? isn’t that evidence of His timing,
far surpassing our own understanding or desire?!
God’s timing is not by mistake.
our waiting seasons are not a delay.
God has a divine design and
intentionality for waiting seasons.
.
these are only examples
of an eternal re-framing
to our waiting seasons.
there is so much that we do not know
about God’s plan and timing.
we can make assumptions
we can seek answers
b u t
it is far better to
wait on the Lord.
.
after learning of this divine timeline
in Mary and Elizabeth’s story, it made
me wonder: what if my waiting season,
for a child is God’s design? what if my
child is not yet born, because there is
a divine plan for their days, for the
time such as theirs, that God has
written into His book of life.
what if my child is born later than i desired,
that they may be the right age to align to
certain events, or calling, or individuals?
we will never understand God’s ways
His ways are greater than our ways.
but it helps to use our divine imagination
to appease our rational minds, with feasible
scenarios as to why waiting may be a part
of God’s divine plan and purpose for our lives.
even if we cannot fathom or imagine the “why”
we can find comfort in knowing He cares
about every detail of our lives
and that includes our days
(which we are so quick to number).
.
truly, God is so faithful, so much so, that in reality
we are not the only ones in waiting seasons:
God is in an eternal waiting season
He is so patient towards humanity
longing that all may turn to him
[ref: 2 peter 3:9]
the sacredness of waiting
this side of eternity
is only a mirror
we see only dimly.
but this mirror
reflects our hearts.
we can see in this temporal reality
how our desires and longings
can lead us to pursuits and waiting.
waiting is a requirement when we
look into a dimly lit mirror,
for we need time to see clearly
what is in front of us.
God’s design for us is not only to
look into the mirror of our hearts,
to see what is reflected back
in our temporal longings and desires;
but to look into the mirror of His word.
reflected back at us in God’s word
is truth, hope, life, and promise.
when we look to creation, we see
only a shadow, a dimly lit version of
the glory that God wants to display to us.
we wait with groaning, aching for the promise
of the creation of a new heaven and a new earth.
[echoed in isaiah 65:17 and revelation 21]
.
waiting is wired into all creation.
waiting is a creation attribute.
we see this in the necessity for seed
to mature and grow before bearing fruit.
without seeds sown, and patience in growth, life would not spring forth.
without God’s word, His Spirit, and the disciplines, our lives will not bear fruit.
the fruit of patience is forged
when we train our hearts
to desire God, and God alone.
when our hearts desire and
long for anything else,
we may subject ourselves
to temporal waiting seasons
that God may not want for us.
.
the Scriptures warn us about
our desires, which can be sinful:
“dear friends, i urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain
from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul”
[1 Peter 2:11]
when Peter speaks of abstinence here, we are reminded of
asterism, which is the correlate of the Greek word for “training”.
we do not become miraculously patient
and content in our circumstances
without practice, without training.
kingdom warfare is not about flesh and blood
but about these desires that wage against our soul.
there are powers and principalities that try to
claim our longings for temporal not eternal use.
“if we feel that any habit or pursuit, harmless in itself,
is keeping us from God and sinking us deeper in the
things of earth […] abstinence is our only course […]
it is necessary that we should steadily resolve to
give up anything that comes between ourselves and God”
[w.r. inge, goodness and truth]
our convenience culture conditions us
to want to avoid waiting at all costs.
but God wants us to avoid anything that
steals our affection and attention from Him.
not because He wants to withhold something good from us,
but because He wants to deliver us from something harmful.
the enemy loves to disguise harmful things as good things.
kingdom warfare is light conquering darkness,
revealing and exposing the enemy’s schemes.
.
i fear that we are sold a lie
by our culture that leads us
to believe that waiting seasons
are not sacred, but a waste.
how else has our society managed to sell us the lie
that waiting for sex in marriage is not worth it?
waiting is a intentional rhythm in creation,
and a part of God’s plan for humanity. it’s
design means that there is a purpose a
reason “why”God would want us to wait.
the waiting is not in vain.
waiting is God’s design for our hearts.
the hard part is trusting
His plan and purpose
holding firm to the faith
and not losing sight of
the sacredness of waiting.
.
as Peter says, we must remember that the real
tension of waiting found in the human experience
is that we are foreigners and exiles in this world.
until we are with our Father in heaven,
we are sojourners on this earth.
we are waiting for home.
we are waiting for Him.
our brothers and sisters for centuries
have been learning this same lesson:
patience in the waiting
for some, it was waiting for God’s promises
(Abraham, promised he would be the father of many nations)
for some, it was waiting for the Messiah
(Old Testament prophets, Jews, alike)
for some, it was waiting to be with Christ
(Paul “to live is Christ, to die is gain”)
.
we are called to wait in the Spirit.
when we notice in ourselves
buried longings for more,
for satisfaction that lasts –
this reveals to us, the eternity
set in our hearts, evidenced
by our desires and longings.
“He has made everything beautiful in its time.
He has also set eternity in their hearts, yet so
that man can’t find out the work that God has
done from the beginning even to the end.”
[ecclesiastes 3:11]
do you see the sacredness, the beauty, the mystery
of waiting? the eternal aching and yearning within?
the true theological basis for practicing patience, and
the reason for the abandonment of our sinful desires,
is the hope we have in promise of the new creation.
the Scriptures speak to this hope and waiting
as a deep groaning and longing for eternity;
a desire we have to put on our heavenly dwelling.
[2 corinthians 5:2]
while we may be waiting
on something we want:
God is waiting for us.
He is calling us by name.
He is calling us home.
He is calling us to make His name known.
He is calling us to bring His kingdom here.
.
until Jesus’ returns, we are
in an eternal waiting season.
this is the ultimate training field
for patience this side of eternity:
waiting for Jesus’ return.
but we are not alone in this waiting
Jesus gave us the gift of His Spirit
the seal of the promise, the new covenant
the inheritance that is ours in Christ
of belonging in God’s kingdom, God’s family
[2 corinthians 5:5]
.
so to finish:
as i pray and prepare
for what lies ahead
i lift up the unknowns
to the Lord
asking Him to guide me
that His hand may be on
my situation, my future
that in my helpless state
of waiting, and not-knowing
that He may be preparing me
for what is in store for me
as i reflect on the possibilities
that lie ahead in my future
i realise that there is
no “safe option”
no “right option”
i do not feel comfortable
or settled, confident or sure
of my own rational accord
with any of the possibilities.
if i am honest with myself
i do not know what i need
nor do i know what I want.
and in this place of fear
and uncertainty.
i wrestle with peace.
i wrestle with patience.
what does it look like
to wait on the Lord
in this season?
when i don’t know
what i’m waiting on?
and when there is no
safe option, safe path?
i realise that i have to find
my safety, my safe place in the Lord
He is the only safe thing
i can hold onto
He is the only safe place
for my fears, my desires
and ultimately, my soul
He knows what lies ahead
when i do not.
so the question is:
do i trust Him
to take care of me
do i trust Him
to lead me
do i trust Him
to keep me safe
.
will we trust Him?
.
“waiting is a letting go
to let something grow.
the waiting need not destroy
the soul but grow the soul.”
[ann voskamp, waymaker]
