I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD.         –Psalm 27:13-14    

Waiting. Most of the time we take it as part and parcel of life. Waiting for the first tomatoes of summer. For the call to board the plane. For just the right moment when you pull the brownies out of the oven. For…and this is the best waiting of all… the phone call that the baby is on her way.

Other times waiting is hard. Like waiting for the diagnosis. For the announcement of whether or not you still have a job. Waiting for the “I love you” or “I forgive you” or “Everything’s going to be alright.” Or the non-communication screaming that maybe everything is not all right. Waiting is hard.

We fill our calendars with work and play, appointments and dates. We don’t want to lose a moment of life to the unplanned. On this summer Saturday, the fatigue of a full week caught up with me, and I lost a gorgeous afternoon to sleep and sleepy reflection.

That’s when the waiting surfaced in my thoughts.

I don’t know about you, but for me, when life gets quiet, the waiting gets the loudest. With it are the answers my brain creates in the face of non-answers. I was at a conference this week where Brené Brown talked about this very thing.

Brown said in the face of non-communication, or being disconnected, our brains are wired to come up with the conversation that we haven’t had…our version of what that conversation would be. How those conversations (in our heads) go depend on how waiting has taken its toll on us.

We wait on that phone call, text, or email…and the longer it takes to come, the more we think ill of what’s happening with that person or our relationship or our work situation. In the waiting, we may panic, or we decide proactively that it doesn’t matter, we don’t care, he/she/it is not worth it.

The sooner I can move the waiting on a person or life situation to a different object, that being God, the faster peace is restored in my thoughts. That’s what happened for me this afternoon….

In the midst of my struggle, with waiting on so many things…God broke through. He helped me rein in my stampeding thoughts, through the quiet of our back yard…and the writing of Andrew Murray. 

 

“The only difference between nature and grace is this, that what the trees and the flowers do unconsciously, as they drink in the blessing of the light, is to be with us a voluntary and a loving acceptance. Faith, simple faith in God’s word and love, is to be the opening of the eyes, the opening of the heart, to receive and enjoy the unspeakable glory of His grace. And just as the trees, day by day, and month by month, stand and grow into beauty and fruitfulness, just welcoming whatever sunshine the sun may give, so it is the very highest exercise of our Christian life just to abide in the light of God, and let it, and let Him, fill us with the life and the brightness it brings.” – Andrew Murray, Waiting for God

“Let waiting be our work, as it is His. And, if His waiting is nothing but goodness and graciousness, let ours be nothing but a rejoicing in that goodness, and a confident expectancy of that grace. And, let every thought of waiting become to us the simple expression of unmingled and unutterable blessedness, because it brings us to a God who waits that He may make Himself known to us perfectly as the gracious One.   My soul, wait thou only upon God!”   Andrew Murray, Waiting for God

“Father, teach us all how to wait.”   – Andrew Murray, Waiting for God

Teach me to wait on You, O God…and everything else will order itself in Your kind and loving hands. I determine to rest in You.

Goodreads Quotes from Andrew Murray’s Waiting for God

Waiting on God by Andrew Murray

The Waiting is the Hardest Part by David Mathis

5 reasons God Makes us Wait by Eric Speir

Waiting on God – How Do We Wait? – by Sylvia Gunter