The practice of waiting

This past week we journeyed through what has recently been named Blue Monday. Apparently, this is the most depressing day of the year. The weather in Britain is usually pretty grim, let’s be honest. Holidays have come and gone, long nights are still with us for a while, and it seems like the monthly pay can’t come quickly enough. Some use this time to highlight the importance of looking after our mental health and general well-being as well as looking out for our friends, family and community. Some offer a slightly more humorous approach – like January being one long Monday or wishing you a happy 45^th of January!

However you’re navigating January, there’s certainly an element of waiting involved.

Waiting is not something we like, it’s a chore and it’s frustrating. As technology advances, solutions to our problems are becoming almost instantaneous. There’s a reason we moan about Amazon and yet we secretly appreciate the speed at which we can receive the item we think we need.

But waiting is a theme we find all through scripture. Waiting is a spiritual practice that affords much growth and deepening for those willing to submit to the process. The verse that comes immediately to mind is the one from Isaiah 40.

In the later chapters of this collection of writings we ascribe to Isaiah, the prophet speaks to the people Israel from the context of Babylonian exile. Opening the chapter with an invitation to the comfort only found in God; we then find a voice of guidance, a foreshadowing of one to come perhaps, but also a promise to hold onto for their present troubled times – a voice calling for them to prepare in this wilderness, a way is being made through desert, dry and barren places, where mountains (obstacles, challenges, overwhelm) are levelled and a straight way (forward, easily navigable) is being made. Cry out, head to the highest mountain and proclaim the good news with strength, in the face of fear, for here is your God! This God is the one who laid foundations of the earth, who taught the path of justice, whose very heart is just, holy and true, who directs the Spirit of the Lord…. Have you not heard, not understood? Do you not perceive Him? ‘This is He who sits above the circle of the earth’. Do you know Him? He is steadfast, everlasting, Creator of the ends of the earth, freely offering strength and power to the weak and powerless. Who may receive this gift? Those who WAIT on the Lord – they indeed shall run and not grow weary, they shall soar on wings like eagles, walk and not become faint.

Isn’t this just stunning language and imagery (perhaps you might like to pause reading at this point, pick up your bible and reread the chapter, camp out there for a while)?

What surfaces in you as you read?

In exile there is displacement, a sense of home being ripped away, forced into circumstances beyond control; there is fear and disorientation. The original recipients of these words were living in turbulent times, threat from all sides, how would this have been received?

While this is not our reality in modern Britain, we can be inspired by the prophet’s encouragement to wait on the Lord. The text reminds followers of the essence of the One they follow. Perhaps that is worth the wait. Those who do wait, who endure the times, discover the reality of God’s immense power and that He is not limited by the same circumstances that we are limited by.

Where do you find yourself tired, worn out, or burdened either by your own personal circumstances or by the events in the world right now, or by how you view society, the Church and/or Christianity? Do you need to simply remind yourself of the authority, power, love, steadfastness and all-encompassing nature of God?

There are other places in Scripture too that you could find inspiration or solace in. The Psalmist in Psalm 27 says this:

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD

In the land of the Living.

Wait for the LORD; be strong and let your heart take courage.

Wait for the LORD!

There it is again, a process, waiting clearly connected to strength and courage. Something takes place in this process of waiting. Perhaps a clue lies in the foundational New Testament story of the upper room. Jesus has told his followers to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the gift of the Spirit to come. They need to move forward in the power and strength of the Spirit rather than in their own capacity. They simply wouldn’t survive what is coming in their own strength.

The fruit of waiting is a gift, despite the process often being difficult and frustrating. Trust the process, trust the One who leads you through, trust in the promise of reorientation……soon you will move forward in power, you see the straight road open up before you in the wilderness as a way is made from the confines of exile.

Jon Timms

Joint CEO, Rural Ministries