The Waiting Place

“It feels like you’re just waiting.”

It felt like an accusation, like there was something wrong with me.  It agitated me.  It angered me. 

I wasn’t just waiting.  I was…

But all the actions that I felt like I was doing would only prove to the speaker that I was just waiting.  I was waiting to heal.  I was waiting on a promise.  I was waiting for clarity.  I was waiting for my situation to change.  I was waiting for my kids to come home. 

I was and am just waiting.

What the speaker failed to see, though, is that I am waiting in a forward motion.  I haven’t stopped putting one foot in front of the other. Maybe my progress isn’t as visible to them or even to me some days, but I haven’t stopped – I won’t stop.  Steve Furtick had this great line in one of his sermons, “I’m not stuck unless I stop.”  I haven’t stopped… but I’m waiting.

I think we confuse waiting with being stuck.  Sometimes the two go hand in hand; people get stuck in ‘The Waiting Place’ like Dr. Seuss described in his poem “Oh the Places You’ll Go”.

“The Waiting Place…

…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for the wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.

NO!
That’s not for you!”

Like that last line, you get to decide if stuck waiting is where you want to be.  Whether it is for you.  

I thought about waiting while my friend and I were out hiking this past weekend.  When you set out on a trail, even though you are moving forward, you still have to wait to get where you are headed.  There’s an anticipation when you set out on the trailhead, but there’s a monotony as the trail goes on and on.  You have to wait to get where you are going, but you get to decide how you spend that time. 

There’s a difference between destination-driven, or this fun term I discovered last year: land snorkeling. 

·       Destination-driven: You have tunnel vision; all you see is the trail ahead, and you are focused on getting where you are going, or you focus on where you are at or where you aren’t at.

·       Land snorkeling: Well, there’s a leisurely pace to it.  You may have a destination in mind, but your focus is not on the destination but the beauty of the trail.  Where you take in how the sunlight coming through the leaves tattoos the trail in patterns of light.  Or how you notice the beauty of jewelweed at the base of a waterfall and wonder, “How can it grow amidst all those rocks? Or how water leaves scars on rocks that tell a story of love and power.

I am a destination-driven hiker.  I am a destination-driven person in general.  You give me a goal, or a checklist, and I strive to complete it.  I have found myself recently in a season of waiting.  That’s a rough transition – destination driven to land snorkeling (I can’t even take that term seriously). God is intentionally slowing me down – forcing me to land snorkel.  Similar to when I go hiking with someone else and I am forced to slow down to keep their pace and host their rests. In doing so, I am blessed with a whole new landscape. The landscape my destination-driven mind would have missed. Little things like the exquisite beauty of bristly lady’s thumb almost completely lost in the tall grass, the sound of water trickling down like chimes through moss clinging to rocks that stretch up like skyscrapers, the sweet aroma of catalpa flowers littering a river bank like a Hawaiian tradition of remembrance in the sand, or crossing a river just to get a picture of a butterfly on a cardinal flower in the middle of a sandbar simply because you were there and why not.  

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.”
(Proverbs 3:5-6)

Submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight – waiting in a forward motion doesn’t always feel straight or linear – but it’s a journey. I just finished reading Brad Leach’s ‘Resilient Soul’, a wonderful book that explores the waiting season, or as he calls it the expectation gap.  The space between current circumstances and the future where our hopes and dreams are realized.  This expectation gap isn’t just about waiting, but how the soul responds while waiting during a frustrating delay.  Leach argues that this is a formative season that will, if you let it, test and shape your soul.  We have a choice, like in the Seuss poem, we can let disappointment and cynicism take root in our souls, or we can allow resilience to grow through allowing us to learn to live in contentment and hope in our present moments instead of constantly looking ahead.  By doing so, we learn to trust God’s presence and provision now, not only when circumstances change, but always.

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.”
(Psalm 23:1-4)

I saw this great meme on Facebook the other day:

When God says wait –

·       W – walk in His timing

·       A – align with His will

·       I – invest in His word

·       T – trust in His plan

Waiting simply means to trust Him. He knows where you are going, and He is going to walk with you along the way.  He is going to provide for you and sustain you.  He is going to give you rest. He is going to grow you in ways you can’t imagine.  So, when you get to your destination, you can sustain the promise.  So, friend, I know your heart is heavy.  I know the trail is hard and the wait is long.  Lean forward, take the next step – He is with you.  He’s leaking joy in the middle of the trail, it’s a hug from a friend, a compliment from a stranger, the laughter of your kids, the colors in a sunset.  Those aren’t destination moments.  Those are middle-of-the-journey mercies to encourage and remind you He’s not done, His best is yet to come.

“If you are driving through the valley right now, God is with you in the car. He sympathizes with your pain and grief. But He also sees beyond it as He leads you into the future, toward the unseen surprises and dreams that He’s been creating for you. I don’t know when your tipping point will come, but if you stay convinced of his goodness, it will inevitably appear. Your joy will overtake your grief.” (Brad Leach ‘Resilient Soul’)

“It feels like you’re just waiting.”

I am, but the waiting place is not for me. I am waiting, but I’m not stuck. I wait in hope, in the quiet of flowers and river pebbles. I wait knowing He is shaping me, preparing me for the next leg of this journey, toward the promise He has set before me.

So, how will you wait? Will you race ahead and burn out? Or will you let your Shepherd lead you beside still waters?