What are you waiting for and how are you waiting?

April 24, 2014: What are you waiting for and how are you waiting? Please "SHARE" this new Precious Prodigal Post: http://bit.ly/1rCJAun

Lam 3:26 "It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord."

We live in an “instant” generation…instant coffee, instant hot chocolate, instant potatoes, instant most anything. It wasn’t always that way. Growing up, I never heard of “Hamburger Helper,” my Mom cooked almost everything from “scratch,” and we didn’t have instant anything except consequences if we got out of line.

Eating out was rare, and a fast-food drive through unheard of. As for learning, the “information highway” was an unmarked dirt road. My generation went to the library to do the research we needed for papers. It was a long, tedious process.

Today, you can get dinner on the table in 20 minutes, and almost any information you want is available in seconds via Google or Bing. Both those things are a lot more convenient than the “old way.” However, I’m not certain they’re better. I wonder sometimes if our ability to have what we need or want almost immediately has kept us from learning how to wait.

Waiting isn’t easy, is it? And when we’re walking a wilderness journey, it’s even harder. Whether it’s loving a prodigal, battling a disease, struggling to grow spiritually, or carrying a heavy burden of any kind, it can seem like it’s gone on forever. I can’t speak for you, but when I’m hurting or frustrated, I want relief, I want answers, I want solutions…and I want them now.

It’s true that “hope deferred makes the heart sick,” (Prov 13:12), isn’t it? If we’ve fought the same battle for months or even years without seeing God’s hand, it can be more than frustrating…it can be disheartening. Who could blame us if we sometimes lose hope? But our God is the unchanging God (Mal 3:6). The fact that His timing is different from ours doesn’t mean He has forgotten us or that He isn’t going to answer our prayers.

Lamentations 3:26 tells me it’s a good thing to have hope. However, it also tells me it’s a good thing to “quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.” Quietly wait? Waiting is hard enough…but waiting quietly? That requires hope and trust and persistence and patience, none of which are my strongest assets. But what it mostly requires is maturity. A newborn baby may have to wait for his bottle or a two-year old for his lunch, but they certainly aren’t going to do it quietly. You can take that to the bank.

I’d like to say that I’ve learned to be “patient in tribulation,” (Rom 12:12), but the truth is that sometimes I’m not. You’d think that, after seeing the Lord come through for me so many times in the past, I’d trust Him in the present. But that isn’t always the case. It goes against my nature to wait patiently for anything.

I can pitch a hissy fit if I choose to and act like a spoiled child when I don’t instantly get what I want. However, the peace I so desperately want, the serenity, the joy…they are all dependent on my both hoping that God will meet my needs and having the faith to wait patiently until He does.

Challenge for Today: Can you, just for today, trust that God knows what He’s doing? Can you wait patiently for His timing?