Tick-Tock, Tickety-Tock

“How much of human life is lost in waiting.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I had to wait for my computer to boot up. 

I had to wait for Firefox to get going.

I had to wait for Word to open, and then to open the document I wanted.

I even had to wait for it to allow me to change the alignment for the above quote.

Some days I find it very hard to wait.  It can be especially frustrating when you see people around you not waiting.  They have deadlines to end current jobs and start new ones . . . they are entering into their God-given purpose in life in a way you have yet to experience . . . families are growing and changing, the world is marching on and yet you feel like you’re just sitting there.  It’s not even that you feel like that in your life as a whole.  It could be an area or two or three.  And you find yourself double-checking your number, wondering if you missed the call of ‘Next!’, asking yourself if you’re waiting in the right place and always wondering ‘when’ and ‘how’.

That is why it is a comfort to see time and again in the Bible, in my life, and in the lives of others the faithfulness of God.  We all may get antsy at one time or another as we wait for His timetable to come to pass.  But just as surely as winter leads to spring, so we can know what God has planned for us will come to pass as we follow Him.  May we all learn to rest in and trust Him as we wait. 

(Hopefully) Whine-Free

So my decision to wait on God for His leading in various things has led to some startling discoveries:

1. I don't take a lot of time each day to really listen to God.

2. I'm not tremendously patient.

3. When I'm really stressed, I like to eat ice cream.

Okay, maybe they're not all that startling or revelatory, but man -- waiting. Who thought it would be so hard? I mean, I can wait in doctors' offices, cars, malls, coffee shops and the like. Granted I often have other things to occupy myself with such as magazines, other people, and driving safely. Why the difficulty waiting for things to come into that right time with God's plans? Why the need to barrel on ahead and do something? Is it so wrong to just sit and listen and look at the things there are to do now and do, well, those things?

I was talking to a friend about it and she put forth an analogy that is helping me in the waiting aspect of things:

Just get your focus back on God and relax, knowing that it's out of your hands, knowing that timing is everything. If that cake is taken out of the oven five minutes too soon, it falls flat and is raw in the middle; five minutes too late, it's tough and dry. But right on time? It's high and moist and flavorful. Perfect.

And I'll just leave it at that.

One tangent, though: Nicholas Sparks. I have one of his books ("A Walk to Remember"), but cannot bring myself to seriously read any more than that one or see any of the movies based on his other bestsellers. They're just too . . . dramatic and overly saccharine in my opinion (I have flipped through more than one, so I'm not wholly uneducated in said opinion). I guess I'm just not an epic romance kind of a woman. I'll take the wit of Jane Austen any day over the "I love you but I can't be with you oh wait I can until something big and epic tears us apart but I will love you forever and forever live alone if something happens to you because that's just how great our love was even though we may not have always even known each other that long" stuff.

Now I'm done. ;-)

Hurry Up and Wait

I have a hard time waiting for things:

-- for friends to show up for coffee.

-- for my husband to finish getting ready on the Sundays I teach Sunday school.

-- for God to speak to me (and that’s on the days I take the time to actually even try to listen).

It’s sort of weird, actually, especially when I know such a verse as this is in the Bible:

But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.
--Isaiah 40:31 (NKJ)

In my mind, I often tack on “Teach me Lord, teach me Lord to wait” as per a song we used to sing in church. Yet still, I have a hard time waiting.

But lately I’m having an even harder time with not knowing where I need to/am supposed to be going. Step into my house and see any number of half-started projects, whether it be rearranging the living room or organizing my office. Speaking of my office, you could also look on the computer and find a fair chunk of half-started writing projects.

In a word -- argh!

Yet all this could have been avoided . . . it can be avoided if only I will take the time to do one simple thing: Wait.

I’m sort of nervous and excited about putting Isaiah 40:31 into practice at the same time. Nervous about what I’ll hear, nervous about what it will entail for me, nervous about whether or not I can be patient enough to wait. At the same time I’m excited to find out what it is God wants me to be doing each day.

So I guess I had better hurry up and wait.

Signs

There is road work going on just outside of the town where I live. And because where I live is not where I work, I get to drive through the construction zone twice a day, five days a week. No, wait . . . hubby and I are in the city often on the weekend, so it would be two times five plus three more . . . no, wait . . . four . . .

Yeah, I drive through it a lot.

And it amazed me one morning how many people put off getting into the correct lane. There are signs, big signs letting motorists know there will soon be the one lane of traffic. Yet many a person will pull out from behind you, go speeding off and then basically budge in front of you because (surprise!) there is now only one lane of traffic.

Then I was thinking how often do I do the very same thing when it comes to doing the things God has planned for me. I see the signs where He is telling me to slow down, wait a second (or however long) yet I go barrelling on ahead only to end up having to wait. Or things are mucked up because I had to budge in. (Then there is the reverse, where you wait and wait and wait (aka procrastinate) until you have to go speeding off to try and catch up. Only to be thisclose to your destination and delayed further because you're getting a ticket.)

So the trick is to read the signs. Then obey them. It will really safe you time, frustrations and (depending on the circumstances), cash.

We plan the way we want to live, but only God makes us able to live it.
Proverbs 16:9 (MSG)