No matter how active you are, or full your life is, there is always going to be a certain amount of time each day spent waiting. This morning I was waiting rather anxiously for the toilet to be free. Then for my toast to pop. Around here we often have to wait for our cars to warm up. Maybe you wait for the train to arrive or the bus to show up. We wait in line at stores. We wait for elevators. Some (like myself) are still waiting for that special someone to make their appearance in their life.
Waiting... waiting on the world to change! (how can you not think of those lyrics when talking about waiting)
I don't know about you, but I am not a huge fan of waiting. I always want to redeem the time- multi-task, or at the very least find something that will entertain me while I wait. A good book, my DSi, blogging.... Right now I am waiting rather impatiently for the arrival of my first niece or nephew.* My brother and sister-in-law even more so, I'm sure. Its exciting, but time, especially these last few days, has seemed to drag by more and more slowly.
That expression, "a watched pot never boils..." I TOTALLY GET THAT!
The more you concentrate on the thing you are waiting for the longer it takes or the more time seems to slow down. And, the more time drags the more weary you become. Which is why the verse in Isaiah 40 is so important... (31).
Waiting... waiting on the world to change! (how can you not think of those lyrics when talking about waiting)
I don't know about you, but I am not a huge fan of waiting. I always want to redeem the time- multi-task, or at the very least find something that will entertain me while I wait. A good book, my DSi, blogging.... Right now I am waiting rather impatiently for the arrival of my first niece or nephew.* My brother and sister-in-law even more so, I'm sure. Its exciting, but time, especially these last few days, has seemed to drag by more and more slowly.
That expression, "a watched pot never boils..." I TOTALLY GET THAT!
The more you concentrate on the thing you are waiting for the longer it takes or the more time seems to slow down. And, the more time drags the more weary you become. Which is why the verse in Isaiah 40 is so important... (31).
"But those who wait on the LORD
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint."
It offers a solution to the weariness of waiting.
Recently I was reading a story called "The Great Stone Face," by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In it, the protagonist, an earnest young man by the name of Ernest, waits his whole life to meet a hero from an ancient prophecy; "a man that would be the very likeness of the Great Stone Face." A face that God himself had carved into the mountainside, in the valley where Ernest lived. He loved the great stone face because of the promise that it held. He saw in it noble, strong, perhaps even divine features and thought to himself that a man that resembled it in any way must be as close to God as man could get.
He waited expectantly his whole life for the prophecy to be fulfilled... but he didn't just wait. Though men came and went from the town, men that many thought may be the one... none were. All of them, without exception disappointed. All fell short in some way. As Ernest waited, he contemplated; he spent time getting to know the Great Stone Face. In time that stony visage, and the prophecy of the man that would be like it, became of greater influence to Ernest's education than any school teacher or passing preacher could be. The waiting, with eyes fixed on this mute teacher, became transformational. The more Ernest contemplated the nobility of it's brow and the strength and divinity of those stony features the more Ernest himself grew to resemble them... Until at last the other inhabitants of the valley could clearly see that Ernest himself was the man of prophecy - the likeness of the Great Stone Face.
SO... what does it mean to wait on the LORD? I think it means we have much time each day that can be redeemed. So many minutes, even hours of the day that we spend waiting that can be better spent with our eyes fixed on Jesus, the Author and Perfector of our faith. If we really did that could it even be possible to be weary? If my thoughts are fixed on the one who came to offer me life to the full, doesn't it stand to reason that my strength will be renewed? That I will "mount up with wings like eagles."?
It is inevitable that the more time we spend with someone the more we become like them... Christ is eternal and because of Christ so am I... with that in mind, time loses it's power. Pretty awesome huh?
*note: since first writing this my sister-in-law and brother were overjoyed to welcome into the world their daughter, and my first niece, Adi!! Now I am just waiting for opportunities to see her :D
