wishing + waiting

I am impatient.

In my senior year of high school, I applied to 9 universities. N I N E . Please do not ask me why on earth I did that because I will never know. Out of these 9, 6 were out of state and 4 did not have any form of automatic acceptance policy. So, as you can probably imagine, I spent most of my summer and first semester of senior year doing one thing and one thing only: college applications. Apply Texas, CommonApp, supplemental essays, you name it – I was doing it. And when it finally seemed like the misery of college apps had come to a close when all the January deadlines rolled around, I realized there was still one thing left to do: wait. Wait for 4 long months for letters to come, campuses to be visited, and ultimately for my decision to be made. It was miserable. I would have traded those 4 months of waiting for another 4 months of filling out applications any day. It was torture! People were constantly asking me: Where are you going to school? What’s your top choice? Have you heard back from everybody yet? … It was infuriating. So frustrating having no idea where I was going to be and who I was going to become. Simply waiting for God to orchestrate my future and fill me in on where he wanted me to end up.

Waiting is not easy. It is frustrating. Sometimes it feels never-ending. There are many times when we pray to God for answer, for guidance, for a knowledge of where to go next. And sometimes God says “yes” or “no” or “go here.” But I believe that, more often than not, God says “wait.”

“The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him”

–Lamentations 3:25

“Wait upon the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” 

–Psalm 27:14

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him…” 

–Psalm 37:7

“But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they will mount with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not faint.” 

–Isaiah 40:31

Haven’t you heard it said, “God’s timing is perfect”?  This could not be more true. He is the one who knows everything: everyone's plan, everyone's struggles, everyone's future. The creator of the universe, the one who knows all of the intricacies of our life, the one who orchestrates every situation to ever exist, HE  commands you to wait. He gives us exactly what we need exactly when we need it. If we trust in God and his plan, we must also trust in him when he asks us to be patient.

As John Green put it in The Fault in Our Stars, “the world is not a wish granting factory.” And neither is God. He does not exist to bless us. But he so graciously chooses to. He breathed life into our very being, and almost instantly, we chose to sin against him. And in spite of this, he sent his son to atone for the sins we had committed, and those we would continue to commit. This is perfect love. This is a God who waits for us to accept him, showers us with grace even when we could never be deserving, and pursues us even when we run from him. He is always waiting on us. God does not exist to bless us; rather, he created us to bless him. Our only response to a God who is gracious enough to love us in all our wandering is to wait upon him.

Some of the most unfavorable situations require us to wait. Waiting rooms at the doctor’s office. Waiting in line at Subway. Waiting for the man we love to propose. Waiting to hear back after a job interview. Waiting for college acceptance letters. Waiting for God to show us where to God. Waiting for God to tell us what to do. And even though God’s plan is often for us to wait, his love and grace never wait to cover us and bring us peace. In all of our waiting, God is waiting with us. He is there, in the quiet moments, when we are nervous and anxious and afraid and unsure. He is there, in every situation, every single time. Our Father is the wisest of the wise, the all-knowing one. And if he is asking us to wait, it is because it is best for us. And for that, how can we not love and trust him?

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” –Romans 8:28

May we never grow tired of waiting on the one who once so graciously waited for us.

God, waiting is not easy. But I know that you have commanded me to do so, in this very moment. And I may not understand why. And I may not know when the waiting will be over. But I will trust you because I know that the love you have for me is sweeter than life itself, bigger and better than anything I could ever imagine. So I will wait, in this moment, just as I am waiting for the day that I will be glorified in you. Teach me to rejoice even in the waiting room. Even when I have no idea where I am going. Teach me to have joy in the waiting hours. I love you, Lord, I trust you, and I will wait for you.