The Waiting Game

Have you ever played the "waiting game?" Probably a silly question since we spend our entire lives waiting. When we're children, we wait for our birthdays, Christmas, summer vacation. We pestered our parents with that age-old question, "Are we there yet?"

Then as adults we wait for that first job offer, we wait in grocery lines, we wait at the traffic light. I could go on and on. It seems we spend our whole life waiting on something or someone. We get impatient waiting for that light to turn green or for the microwave to ding. I can't imagine a life without a microwave, yet I did live in a time without a microwave and I managed just fine. It seems our society has groomed us to expect everything to happen quickly.

God doesn't work the way the world does. He took seven days to create the world. That seems pretty quick to me since it takes the government two years to finish a short interstate construction project. Nevertheless, God could have created the entire world in an instant if He wanted to. Perhaps there is something to be learned from that? Time means nothing to God. He sees time in a completely different way than we do. We see it in our clocks and calendars. But He knows that we have that limitation to understand time. Maybe that's why God paced himself by creating the earth in the span of seven days. Perhaps He was giving us an example.

When I first started this blog, I wrote an article about God's Timing. Waiting on God can be difficult. I wrote another article about the Circumstances of Life in which I briefly touched on this topic of waiting. I've come to learn that waiting is a trust issue where God is concerned. My life is currently in a "holding pattern" as I wait on God to give direction in certain areas of my life. But, I continue with life in the present and the plans that are close to His heart.

Someone recently pointed out that you can have Head Trust or Heart Trust in God. Head Trust is impatient, will manipulate circumstances and run ahead of God. Heart Trust is more relaxed. It's like that trust-fall game where someone stands behind you, promising to catch you as you blindly fall backward into his arms. That is Heart Trust. I don't know about you, but that kind of trust does not come easy. But God promises to ALWAYS be there ready to catch me. I have to be willing to let Him catch me.

A Psalm that has been close to my heart for the past ten years is in Psalm 62:1-2.

My soul waits in silence for God only; 

From Him is my salvation.

He only is my rock and my salvation,

My stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken.

I heard a sermon almost ten years ago by Charles Stanley on this passage. He described the first half of verse one as follows:


Waits = stillness; silently; quiet trust; But it's also active as we wait expectantly.


Silently = quietly, still, not murmuring or complaining or questioning God constantly


For God only = my eyes are on God, waiting for HIM to act, not waiting for someone else to do something.


Sometimes the reasons God is letting us wait may be because...


...we are not ready (God is still working on us).


...if our desire involves others, they aren't ready and God still has to change their mind.


...God is waiting for our focus to be on Him and not on that "thing" we desire.