Monday, March 28, 2011

Ready, Set, WAIT!!!!!

I love my kids... No, really, I do. I love them now, loved them when they were little and will love them right up until I take my very last breath. I have to, God makes me. That is a good thing because there have been many bumps along my parenting road that would have derailed me had He not put that in place.

One of the things that I learned early on in my parenting journey was a fairly simple truth that had great impact on how I managed from day to day. I realized that children don't have a concept of time innately built into them, but that it's learned and has to be repeatedly practiced for years before they truly get it. I realized this by mistakenly informing them of outings or dates that were to contain very fun and exciting adventures prior to their actual happening. In short, my children drove me nutty asking if we were "there yet?" I began to understand the reasoning behind keeping the excitement a secret until I knew for sure we were headed to the car and on to our adventure. I did it to keep myself at least a little closer to sanity and to hopefully avoid disappointment should plans in our very unpredictable lives change.

As my children have matured into young adults, their concept of time has improved and I can let them know ahead of time when we are planning a trip or adventure. They appreciate the delight of waiting for the good stuff to come along and they have gotten much better at not making Mom a raving lunatic with an eye twitch who mutters to herself. They are also more capable of handling disappointment when life hands us a change in plans and we have to delay our gratification a bit longer.

I wonder often if God feels the same way about His children? Does he get a tick in His Heavenly facial muscles when we start in on the fact that He is taking sooooo long to complete our prayer requests? Does He hold His mighty head in His hands and make guttural growly sounds when we continuously ask, "Am I there yet?" or worse yet, "Are you there, God?" Does God resist the urge to yell into the back seat, "If you ask me one more time, we are turning around and not going anywhere!"? I chuckle at the thought, but I might actually get it if He did any of those things. I might realize how irritating I am being if I heard my Heavenly Father losing His patience with my impatience.

But, to His credit and due solely to His Holy demeanor, He does no such thing. He simply waits with us in the silence, no matter what whining noise we decide to make. God knows before our impatience sets in and we start the complaining that it's coming. He doesn't fool Himself into thinking that we are old enough to get it, we will understand He is there with us or that we will somehow miraculously settle into this amazing trust of Him because He has never left nor forsaken us. Nope. God completely gets us and our inability to be patient with His omniscient timeline.

And yet, He still tells us we have something great coming our way. Is He crazy? Does He delight in torturing our mortal souls? Nope. He simply loves us enough to keep trying to teach us that our concept of time needs some work. He wants us to understand that He loves us even when we don't understand Him and His seeming disappearance at critical times. In Isaiah 55:8 God tells us that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. We don't get to think with the same Heavenly brain and therefore our warped Worldly concept of time is also skewed. We think God is taking a very long time to complete something and yet God's sense of time is absolutely perfect. We may never know the things God has done for us and with us while He seemed to tarry, but we have to trust that He is in it all.

I am sure that Martha and Mary had some choice words for our Lord all set up to spill forth when He missed a critical visit to Lazarus in the eleventh chapter of John. Jesus had chosen to wait a full four days after Lazarus was in the tomb to venture into Bethany, which was only a mere two miles away. After reading the story we are told that He did it for a very specific reason, so that those who witnessed Lazarus' resurrection would know that it was not by accident or a trick but a true and miraculous rising. Try telling that to Martha and Mary as they had watched Lazarus slip into more and more dire straits, finally dying and even being entombed. I am sure you might have heard just what they thought of the idea! After the sting of their grief had subsided ever so slightly, however, they showed their faith in the Lord by meeting Him on the road and trusting Him when He asked for the stone to Lazarus' tomb to be rolled away. And what a sight for sore and weep-worn eyes when their brother answered the call of Jesus to rise and come forth! Imagine Martha's joy and excitement when her timetable for her brother's rise turned out to be so very, very wrong!

When you pray, have faith. God always answers, and He answers in three ways: Yes, No, or Wait. The yes and the no are easy, the instant gratification answers, if you will. The harder answer is the "wait." It is harder because it is designed to grow us, to teach us and to complete God's plan, not just our own. Often, when I have been required to wait, God has delivered so much more than I could have ever thought to ask for. I am not saying that some "wait" requests haven't ended in a final "no," but always it has been for the absolute benefit of giving glory to God. Growth is often painful and waiting is not for the faint of heart, but the ultimate result of being more wholly His is absolutely worth it. What are you waiting for? Trust God to keep driving the car right up to the curb of His Heavenly purpose and know that even when you keep asking every twenty seconds or so that yes, He is still there, still in control and still very much in love with you!

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