Today, my two-year-old daughter decided she was full of lunch when she was about halfway done with it. She climbed onto my lap and said, “Mommy, I’m all done. But if I’m all done, that’s waste.” I asked her whether she was done with it forever or if she just needed a break and wanted me to keep it on the table for a little while in case she was hungry again later. She responded that she wanted to have some more later. So I told her, “Well, if you want more later, that’s not wasting – that’s just waiting.”
“That’s not wasting – that’s just waiting.”
The thoughts were immediate after I spoke those words. Wasting and waiting are not interchangeable. And waiting should not be considered wasting.
I think we all understand this, and yet, sometimes it is hard to not consider the wait to be a waste.
Everyone has experienced waiting, whether it was intentional waiting on our part or forced waiting that we would otherwise not have chosen. (Perhaps all waiting is waiting that we would opt out of if we really had the choice.) It is hard to wait, and patience is a difficult trait to master.
I think sometimes patience can be seen as passive, but I don’t think it should automatically connote inaction. Patience can be more likened to perseverance, which we would deem as a more active term.
2 Peter 1:5-7 tells us, “Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.” James 1:4 advises, “Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
There must be something to this perseverance thing, and patience is a fruit of the Spirit, according to Galatians 5:22-23. What I’m taking away from these verses (among others) is that there is purpose behind the waiting and that, when we allow it, it will cause our faith and character to mature in ways that it simply cannot without such experiences and seasons of waiting.
When you are waiting, please don’t consider it a waste. Most likely, even now you are waiting for something, and perhaps it feels like your life is being wasted or that you are losing time or resources or something else that matters to you because of that wait.
But… what if what you are gaining is much more than that?
What if any “wasting” is simply on your part, and of your own doing? What if the enemy is working to discourage you during this season of waiting to try to detract from what the Lord is using that season to build and develop within you? What if you can choose during that season of waiting to persevere and push through and perhaps find other ways to bring meaning and joy and fulfillment to your days?
What if you even find something during the wait that makes you realize that the thing you’d been waiting for or fixated upon… that thing was never the end game anyway. Something much better was meant for you, and the prior version of you just couldn’t see it, or couldn’t have possibly yet known.
I watched a reel the other day which was a clip of someone talking about this concept of waiting and by the end of it, I was moved to tears by the goodness of our God.
One of the lines the speaker said, the one that really got me, was something like this: “What if God just so happens to be more committed to your sanctification than He is to your comfort?”
And, of course, we KNOW that He is. Comfort is fleeting, and He’s concerned with forever. He cares too much for us to just give us what we consider to be the “good stuff” of this world whenever we desire it and think that we can still somehow know and attain the kind of holiness He calls us to, the kind He is committed to developing within us.
The Lord gave us the Holy Spirit to be our aid in this, to facilitate and enable such work, because He knew it wouldn’t be easy for us. It’s simply too big a task. But, one thing we should know about God especially when we consider His actions and heart demonstrated through Jesus, is that when something He desires for us is too big for us, He will always provide the solution. He Himself steps in where He knows we cannot possibly do the work on our own. Jesus is His answer for salvation, and the Holy Spirit is His answer for sanctification. And I gotta surmise that the development of patience, through the practice of waiting, is integral for us. Perhaps in ways and for eternal purposes which we cannot even anticipate this side of heaven.
I’d like to encourage us to think about waiting in a new way. To consider that we can learn and grow to even excel at waiting, to choose to maximize the work of the Spirit within us during those times by relinquishing any thought of it being time wasted.
Rather…
What if waiting is an absolutely essential part of our earthly experience in order for the Lord to develop within us the kind of perseverance that leads to godliness (2 Peter 1:5-7, above). What if it is necessary in order to grow us into mature and complete followers of Jesus, not lacking in anything (James 1:4, above)? What if these seasons of waiting can actually be experienced as times of special closeness, dependency on, and trust in our Heavenly Father? What if He is helping us to listen more fully and intentionally so that when He releases us – when He says, “Go ahead” or “Here you go” and gives us His blessing – we will be more prepared for whatever that thing is? What if, because of the wait, we will utilize that blessing more effectively for eternal impact rather than for selfish ambitions? What if we will appreciate it more fully than He knows we would have otherwise? Or, what if, perhaps we will be more successful even by worldly considerations once we have been developed into the person best suited for whatever the thing is for which we’ve been waiting?
Really, when it comes down to it, we are always waiting for something. Right when you discover that you are no longer waiting for one particular thing, you find you are waiting for the next. It is a reality of life, and we get to choose how we think of the wait, how we spend the wait, whether we make the most of the wait and whether we capitalize on it in a way which produces eternal impact for us and for others. Even when that wait is so, so hard.
Ultimately, we are all waiting to go to our forever home, and this life is certainly not a waste in the meantime. Let’s make the most of it. How will you choose to wait?
Psalm 130:5-6,
HLC
sacred strokes 