DO YOU HAVE A WAIT PROBLEM?

          We live in an age of speed.  We eat fast food.  We enjoy instantaneous connectivity via the World Wide Web.  We prefer quick fixes and we’re ever vigilant for shortcuts that save us time and money.  Someone has opined that America is a “civilized madhouse” - - we need fewer sports cars and more rocking chairs.  Not all things can be accomplished in a hurry.  Really good fruit requires age to ripen.  Most of us have been schooled by  that well-known old adage, “GOOD THINGS COME TO THOSE WHO WAIT”.  There is something very valuable about the process of learning to wait.  Contrariwise, instant gratification seldom ever builds strong character - - a truth clearly revealed to us by an abundance of anecdotal evidence.  

          With the backing of Scripture, we could tweak that ancient maxim to read, “GOD’S THINGS COME TO THOSE WHO WAIT”.  David’s psalms are  replete with exhortations to “wait!”:  None who wait shall be ashamed (Ps.25:3 - - cf. Ps.33:20; 62:5 and 69:3 & 6, to mention just a few citations).

‘Wait for Me’, declares the Lord (Zeph.3:8);  I will wait for the God of my salvation (Mic.7:7);  It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the Lord (Lam.3:26).  One of Isaiah’s most popular passages enunciates:  Those who wait on the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary (Isa.40:31).  They waited for the flood in the days of Noah (1Pet.3:20).  Abraham and Sarah waited (not so patiently) for the birth of a son (Gen.16-21).  Jacob steadfastly worked and waited for fourteen years to obtain his beloved bride Rachel (Gen.29).  Joseph waited in prison for two years (Gen.41:1).  While enslaved, the children of Israel waited in Egypt for 400 years (Acts 7:6).  Moses fled Egypt at the age of 40, only to wait another forty years for God to reveal Himself in the burning bush (Acts 7:30).  God the Father had His Son wait till the age of thirty to begin His public ministry (Lk.3:23).  We don’t get the impression from the gos-pels that Jesus was in a hurry.  In fact, Jesus frequently charged His disciples to “come away and rest a while” (Mk.6:31).  Following the great com-mission and just prior to His ascension, Jesus commanded His followers to linger in Jerusalem and “wait” (Acts 1:4).  On and on we could go.

          We waited in the Opera House for sixteen years.  We need classrooms and a fellowship hall and a baptistry.  Will we have to wait another six-teen years or longer?  In the big scheme of things, I derive comfort in knowing that we are not the first to cry out, How long, O Lord?.  cf. Ps.13:1 & 74:10; Jer.12:4; Hab.1:2; Zech.1:12 and Rev.6:10.  When we respond favorably to “waiting” it  expresses our unflinching faith in The Giver (Js.1:17).

                                                                  Terry Siverd / Cortland Church of Christ