Blog

Do you like to wait?

I didn’t think so…Did you know that statistics show the average person spends anywhere from 3-6 years of their life waiting? Six months of that is waiting on traffic lights! Just re-reading that sentence makes me feel tense! Patience is a fruit of the spirit, but none of us actually enjoys waiting. The problem many of us have isn’t the actual act of waiting but what happens in our hearts while we wait.

For me and many like me (you know, imperfect humans), waiting causes a downward spiral of frustration, impatience, selfishness, and anger. If this can happen to us while simply waiting in line at the grocery store or driving behind an impossibly slow car--- what is happening in our hearts when God makes us wait?

If you are anything like me, my heart has its ups and downs in seasons of waiting. One week I will be filled with patience and great expectation for what God is doing in my life, but the very next week I will begin to allow frustration and bitterness to take root and not unlike my toddler son, I will throw a fit.

Yet God, the Creator of the Universe, knows what it’s like to wait and He exhibits great patience with me, his restless daughter. Waiting, when done well becomes a time of great transformation.

Lamentations 3:25 states, “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.” 

Now I have a confession to make, as I write this I am in a season of waiting. As I woke this morning and uttered another frustrated prayer asking God for clear direction, it was almost audible in my heart as God gently rebuked me. “Jess, have you been waiting well in this season?” So here I am writing not from a place of expertise but a place of humble exploration. I hope as we are all so often found waiting that you will join me on the journey to learn to wait well.

A prayer while waiting:

Dear Heavenly Father,

You promise that those who wait on you will renew their strength. Please fulfill this in my life and empower me to run and not grow weary, to walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31). Lord help me not to fear or be dismayed as I wait. Help me to trust you to strengthen me, and hold me in your righteous right hand on my most difficult days. (Isaiah 41:10) My hope is in your Word, Father, and I eagerly anticipate your work in my life. (Psalm 130:5-6). Lord, you are good to those who wait and to the soul who seeks you. (Lamentations 3:25) I see your goodness in my life in the ways you have provided so abundantly for my physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. Today I commit to look to you Lord and wait for the God of my salvation because I know you hear me. (Micah 7:7) Thank you Lord for hearing me when I pray and for the transforming work you are doing through my waiting. Amen.