A Spirituality of Waiting 

"…in every way you have been enriched in him…so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ." - 1 Corinthians 1:5, 7

In his book, “Oh, the places You’ll Go,” Dr Seuss describes a place called “The Waiting Place.”  He describes it as a useless place where people are just waiting. 

Waiting for a train to go
Or a bus to come, or a plane to go;
Or the mail to come, or the rain to go
Or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow;
Or waiting around for a yes or no
Or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting

 We all have had the experience of being in “The Waiting Place.”  But not all waiting is as trivial as his description:  waiting for someone to die; waiting for someone to be born; waiting for test results (academic or medical); waiting for a new opportunity; waiting for a new relationship to happen; waiting for a new job. 

 I would say that, for most people waiting is not a very popular thing.  In fact, we likely consider waiting a waste of time, a necessary inconvenience, or to use Dr Seuss’ words, “a useless place.”   Waiting is often experienced as a desert experience; a wasteland; an indeterminate state.

 Advent is about waiting: waiting for something bigger than us to happen; to intervene; to advocate for us; to be born; waiting for God to reveal himself and show His face.  If we pray to God in our waiting, we may cry out the intense lament of the Psalmist, "How long, O Lord!  How long must I wait?" 

 The Christian faith says that our waiting is not useless or in vain; that God comes, and in fact Advent means "coming" or "arrival."  The Christian faith speaks of the advent of God in a threefold way. 

     First, God came in the historical person of Jesus Christ. 

    Second, God continues to come through the power of the Holy Spirit as God empowers his church with His gifts and with faith to persevere.  

    Third, the Lord promises to come again in a final consummation in God's good time - not ours.   

Because God seldom comes at the snap of our fingers; or at the sound of our whims and desires; or in the ways we expect or would like God to come, we often find ourselves in the midst of an experience of waiting - waiting on God.   

Most of us find waiting to be difficult.   I believe one big reason we find waiting difficult is that we are fearful.  One of the most pervasive emotions is fear.  My experience that people are afraid: afraid of inner feelings; afraid of others; afraid of the future; afraid of being hurt; afraid of the past.     

Fear usually precipitates one of two responses: fight or flight.  We either run away from that which we fear, or we may make aggressive, hostile, or even destructive responses in the face of fear.  Fear can often make us adopt a first-strike approach.  I heard a news story that on Friday, at a WALMART in Maryland, people were trampled in a mad rush to get to the limited number of X-Boxes available at the store.  The fear that someone else would beat them to the best deal created an aggressive situation where people were trampled at the entrance.  Fortunately nobody was seriously injured, but it illustrates how easily our fear converts into striking out.   

The more afraid we are, the harder waiting becomes.  This is exactly why waiting is such an unpopular thing. I believe a step toward mature faith is to develop a spirituality of Christian waiting,   In my own life I have identified and experienced a couple of components of a spirituality of waiting.   

The first is trusting God's promise that God will come.  Christian waiting is similar to the waiting of a woman in pregnancy.  In the first pages of the gospel of Luke the angel said to Mary, "Do not be afraid! You are to conceive and bear a son."   God asked Mary to put her fear aside and trust in His promise.  A woman can wait and endure the hardships and discomfort of pregnancy because she knows that something positive is at work in her life - something incredible, miraculous and altogether new.  But in order to experience the fullest blessing of the promise, she must wait for the appropriate time for the promise to be fulfilled.

 Whatever your experience of waiting take a lesson from the waiting of pregnancy.   Put your fear aside and trust that God is at work on your behalf working quietly and subtly.  Trust that in God's good time and God's good way God's promise will reach a fulfillment for you. The fulfillment may be different from what you desire or expect, but trust that it will be surprising and wondrous.     

 The second thing is that waiting means living in the moment.  I know that my personal inadequacies in waiting often have prevented me from being present in the moment.  Because I hate to wait I am usually not in the moment.  Overcome by fear and anxiety, I remove myself from being in the moment, and as a result I miss out on God's attempts to get my attention and break into my life – right now!  Instead of being present in the moment, I will fuss and fume; complain and be frustrated; wallow in self-pity or blame others.  I long to be somewhere else; anywhere but in the indeterminate state and wasteland (useless place) of waiting.  My fears can overwhelm me as I imagine the worst and lose sight of God promise that He will come.

 A spirituality of waiting says that the present moment is not a wasted moment and not a useless place, but is a crucial moment and pregnant place full of possibilities that God can use to prepare you for the ultimate fulfillment of His promise.   

I experienced this in a profound way over a decade ago.  In 1992 I resigned my pastoral position as Senior Pastor of a large mid-western congregation a broken and burned-out man.  It felt like I had no future; no sense of positive direction.  I went into counseling to work through life-long issues of low self-esteem and an unhealthy, compulsive work ethic that contributed to my burn out. 

 I remember expressing to my counselor my fear – terrified I had reached a dead end.  In her sound Christian wisdom, she encouraged me to set my fears aside by beginning to live more fully in the moment; to focus on each and every day and to look for ways God was breaking into my life in the present.  I was skeptical at first, but I slowly began to focus on the personal issues that had been my undoing.  With her wise guidance, and the love of my family, I began to put my energy into each and every day; doing the work of my therapy and growing in my understanding of the healing power of faith in God.   

It was miraculous!  I experienced God breaking into my life in marvelous and miraculous with each new tiny discovery, and the gradual day by day healing and renewed empowerment.  It became a glorious period of time in which I lived my life one day at a time, sometimes an hour at a time, as fully in the moment as I have ever been.  I set my fears aside and trusted that God was imminently present during this indeterminate time.  It was not an easy time, but it was not a wasteland either for God was imminently present.  As the months rolled by, I began to feel better about me, better about my faith, better about God; better than I had ever felt.  I was given a new set of attitudes, tools, knowledge and skills (“gifts” Paul would call them) with which to be nurtured and renewed.   As I experienced God in little ways in the present moment, I began to trust that God was preparing me for something new. 

 One day the phone rang and the bishop invited me into an interim ministry situation.  After many months it ended and he invited me into a second.  These were temporary assignments, but crucial, as I fully enjoyed the moments of each one as much as I have ever enjoyed anything in my life.  Finally after a 21 month pregnancy,  of entrusting God with each moment of my life, I began a new ministry, as a called pastor to a congregation in Anchorage, Alaska - a place that I never imagined I would ever live.  I believe I truly experienced the fulfillment of Paul's words, "…in every way you have been enriched in him… as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ."

 When we let fear and anxiety overwhelm us, we depart the moment and tragically miss the imminent presence of God.   A spirituality of waiting means to live each moment in the belief that God is at work in the everyday, ordinary moments and events of our days. 

 Jesus told his disciples, "Keep alert; for you do not know when the time is coming."

 I believe a significant part of "keeping alert" is trusting the promise that God is at work, even though you may not see it.  Mary trusted the promise of God that in her very womb God's plan was unfolding for her - as crazy, improbable and difficult as it was.   

We "keep alert" by staying in the moment and expecting that God will come now in ordinary ways, especially when we find ourselves in the wasteland of waiting. 

 I believe the Lord Jesus himself modeled an incredible spirituality of waiting.   Jesus repeatedly told his disciples that he "must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the authorities, and be killed and after three days rise again."  (Mark 8:31-23; 9:30-32; 10:33-34)  In other words he knew beforehand that an ambush was waiting for him in Jerusalem!   Yet even with that knowledge, he continued on his journey and was not deterred from going to Jerusalem.  Why? What empowered him? 

 I believed Jesus lived fully in the moment.  He trusted that God his Father was imminently present in each and every moment of His life.  He knew what was coming for sure, but His trust that God was present in the ordinary moments, people and circumstances of his life.  It shaped and strengthened his resolve to trust the future that God His Father had in store for him - which included a cross and an empty tomb.  He trusted that God His Father had a larger purpose in store for him that began in the present moment and extended towards His life’s ultimate purpose – “the final revealing” - in his death and resurrection for the salvation of all.    

 In whatever wasteland of waiting you might be experiencing, I believe there is great power and hope in adopting a spirituality of waiting.   Do not fear.  Be in the moment.  Look for God in the everyday people, moments and circumstances.  You will be surprised at what you see.   

 Like the woman in pregnancy, trust that something bigger is at work for you, growing and building and waiting to be born at the appropriate time - God's time. 

 The promise of advent is being fulfilled for you:  God came in the Lord Jesus, crucified and risen; God comes now in the present moment enriching you with the gifts you need as you wait for the final revealing when the Lord will come again in a glorious, wondrous and most miraculous way.  Amen.