Patience in Expectancy

 This post first appeared on the Sisters Forward Facebook page. 

It feels like a lot of life is waiting. We're waiting for the next school break. For the next paycheck. Waiting for the next opportunity of work and ministry. We might be waiting for test results, for kids to get to the next stage of life.  Waiting and hoping for a friend's diagnosis to resolve into healing. Life is just a great big waiting game. 

Waiting can be so very frustrating. It feels like inaction and thus, a waste. Waiting seems like a place of vulnerability and being unsafe. Waiting means we don't know or have the knowledge to proceed. We are not able to depend on our own logic or reasoning to get out of the situation we are in. When we are not sure how to proceed, we can feel lonely and afraid. 

I am so thankful that this is not where we have to stay when we have the Holy Spirit as our Helper. Second Peter 3:8 reminds us that "...with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and that a thousand years is like a day." We do not need to rush through our waiting. We revel in the knowledge that God's timetable is much slower than our own. It is in this waiting that we learn dependence on God. We realize our own finiteness and praise Jesus that He is infinite. While the waiting is hard, we know that the yoke of Christ is easy and His burden is light. Because Jesus does not give us the burden of waiting to handle on our own. We are imbued with the strength of the Holy Spirit to endure the seasons of waiting. 

My dear sisters, let the words of John 13:7 be both our reminder and our encouragement. That though we do not know what God is doing in our lives currently, later we will understand. When we get to Heaven and have the perspective of Jesus to look back at the journey we have taken, then we may have the full understanding of what God was doing. Then the expectancy and burden of waiting we have carried with us will be fulfilled by our loving Father.