As I was commuting around town earlier today, I was gently reminded about the importance and the value of waiting…
I have this horrible tendency to switch travel routes mid-journey because one bus is taking too long or maybe another one will be there quicker. Sometimes having alternate routes and an app that gives you each arrival time for the buses near you can be a gift… sometimes, for someone particularly impatient, it can feel like more of a curse.
Much of the time, as I switch around between travel routes, I actually end up losing time and having a much longer commute. The only difference is that, instead of staying put and just waiting in one place, I’ve spent most of my wait time walking around.
Just because I was moving around and “making progress” doesn’t mean that I was actually making the wisest choice. I was simply sick of waiting in one place.
As counterintuitive as it may seem to wait for a bus in one place, rather than constantly being on the lookout for a faster, more “efficient” route… today, the Lord was showing me that what I needed wasn’t more walking and rushing around. What I needed was to slow down.
When I did so, no matter how begrudgingly, I began to understand the Advent season a little more…
Can you imagine being the people of God who simply had to wait for their Messiah to arrive? HOW tempting would it be to come up with your own strategies to overthrow the oppressive forces in your land? How tempting would it be to begin believing that perhaps God had actually abandoned his people, once and for all. Maybe they had finally gone too far, maybe there had been a final straw that changed God’s mind about rescuing his people – again.
And yet, nothing could have been further from the truth! In the midst of those generations of people who lived between Malachi and the beginning of Matthew, God was also waiting for the opportune moment, setting people and plans in place until JUST the right moment.
For a young virgin girl who would bear the Son of God.
For a wild little boy named John to be born and to prepare the way.
For the stars and planets to come into alignment for God’s special sign to light the sky…
I have a feeling that as we begin to move into 2024 here at Lifespring, a year with the theme of Patient Endurance, that all of us are going to enter some new seasons of waiting. The waiting that forces us to slow down and live counterintuitively.
Scott the Painter (@scottthepainter) recently posted this reflection for the advent season and I’d like to end with it here:
“There was a moment when the Presence of God was felt as uneasy morning sickness.
– Scott Erickson
Don’t be surprised if your current unease is that exact same avenue of Presence.
There may have been a period in Mary’s journey when she too went through this same uneasy trimester. I can imagine the moment it hit, ending the spiritual high of angelic announcement and welcoming her into the uneasy, queasy feeling of actually having to go through the physical details of this divine calling. That’s the rub of all divine proclamations, isn’t it? The announcement that you are going to grow.
The process of growth is always uneasy, because growth never comes through ease. It comes through the stretching and expanding of one’s own capacity to push on ahead.
And often the change that needs to happen in order for you to grow may leave you dry heaving on the sidelines… The uneasiness is not a sign you’re doing it wrong. In fact, just as with pregnancy, it’s a sign you’re on the right track…”
(Wednesday, December 6, 2023)