Waiting sucks!

As my rather blunt title suggests, this first post is about waiting…or rather, my difficulties with waiting. When I think about the major events in my life, and more specifically the waiting process that preceded those events, I have to admit that I’ve done a poor job of being patient. Rather than trusting God with these things, I did my darndest to hold tight to the reins. I’d talk a lot about trusting God during those seasons, but in reality I never fully relinquished control to Him (that’s hard for me to admit as a pastor). Now I wish I could speak of this propensity for impatience solely in the past tense, but unfortunately this continues to reign in my life. I can admit this without hesitation because I’m currently in yet another season of waiting, and I’m finding myself repeating the same pattern. Perhaps you’ve been there. Perhaps you’re still there.

Maybe you’re between jobs and waiting for that right opportunity to come along. Maybe you’re residing in that lovely land of buying/selling a house, and you’re waiting as all of the pieces fall into place on both sides. Maybe you’ve confessed your love to another and you’re waiting for a response. Maybe you’re going through a divorce and you’re just waiting for it to be over. Maybe you’re in a relationship that has taken an abusive turn, and you’re waiting for the right time to walk away. Maybe you’re waiting for your kids to move through their current phase of sleep training, teething, tantrums or properly using a toilet. Wherever you find yourself, it’s likely that there’s some element of waiting operating in your life. While waiting is an unavoidable part of life, and one over which we often have no control, we do have control over how we wait. And that’s what I wanna dial into.

A scripture that’s recently come to mind for me is Psalm 118:24 which reads, “This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” While I’d imagine this is a familiar scripture to many (maybe you’re finding yourself humming the Sunday School song based on this verse), how many of us truly embrace this reality? I don’t know about you, but if I’m honest I’ve gotta admit that I really struggle with this. Rather than rejoicing and being glad in today, I’m more focused on being worried, anxious or, perhaps even, excited about tomorrow. Now while I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with thinking and dreaming about the future, that’s really not where God wants our thoughts to be focused because that’s His domain. In Matthew 6:34 Jesus says, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” At first glance these seem like rather pessimistic words from Jesus, but I believe He’s simply making the point that we’ve got enough to deal with today that we shouldn’t be focused on worrying about tomorrow. God’s got that! (I’d say the same applies when we’re constantly focused on our yesterdays, particularly on rehashing our past mistakes…God’s grace has that covered.) The key to this passage in Matthew’s Gospel is what comes immediately before verse 34, where Jesus says that worry exists for all people, regardless of whether or not they have a relationship with God. But for those of us who are seeking after God, we should trust that He already knows what we need (better than we do actually), so why spend all our time and energy worrying about such things? Instead, Jesus says we should focus all of today’s energy on “seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness,”and then we can simply trust God with the rest. While I absolutely believe this to be true in theory, when it comes to reality I wanna say “easier said than done” and go right on worrying about yesterday or tomorrow while neglecting today.

While this remains a real struggle for me, I wanna share a very recent event that has helped me to recognize why Jesus’ words are truth. This week my oldest son, Emmaus, went off to his first day of school (granted it’s only 3K, but when it’s your first time sending your kid off it’s a big deal, ok!)

As you can see he was so excited for school, which is huge given that he’s a pretty shy kid. Clearly this was a big deal in his little world. Now the reality is that this major milestone for our son took place in the midst of my worrying about tomorrow, as Marisa and I are currently in a season of waiting to see what God has in store for us with my ministry. What hit me on Emmaus’ big day was that while I’m impatiently waiting for the future I run the risk of missing what God has in store for me today. Am I eager for this season of waiting to be over so I can begin the calling that God has for me? Absolutely! But I’m definitely not eager for Emmaus (or Grayson) to grow up too quickly and have their first days of middle school, high school or college (3K was tough enough). I realize that’ll happen quickly enough without me trying to speed up time in order for the other aspects of my future to begin. If I want to savor these preciously fleeting moments when my boys are little then I also have to learn to embrace this season of waiting and all the ways that God intends to grow me through it.

So after writing this post have I changed my tune about waiting? Nope, it still sucks! But, as has been the case a lot lately, God is teaching me so much through my boys. My eldest going off to his first day of 3K has helped to drive home those scriptures for me. Today is a gift from God because we might not have a tomorrow, so we’ve gotta rejoice and be glad in it. And although I’m eager to see what God has in store for my family’s future, my worrying about or trying to control tomorrow won’t bring about God’s plans any sooner; in fact, it may bring about my plans instead of God’s. The best thing we can do today is to seek to align ourselves with God’s heart, while savoring all that this day has to offer (particularly the precious people in our lives), and then trust that He’ll take care of tomorrow.

So, with that, we wait…