I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning. – Psalm 130:5-6
Lent is a time of preparation and waiting, but I must admit that waiting is not my favorite thing to do! We are fortunate to live in a world where most things are “one-click,” delivered the next day, available by Google search, right at our fingertips… you get the idea. We are not a very patient society. We complain about waiting in the doctor’s office, the grocery line, or on the highway. We grumble about delayed mail, downtime on our networks and dropped calls. We don’t like to wait!
Waiting seems like one of the hardest aspects of our spiritual lives. We wait for the news of health tests. We wait for a call about a new job. We wait for retirement to come. We wait for children. We wait for healing. We wait to find love. We wait to see our loved ones again.
The spiritual disciplines of prayer and reading the Scripture can help us wait. When we go to God daily in prayer and Scripture, God’s Word brings hope, encouragement, healing, strength and peace. We also experience the presence of God and the assurance of hope when we worship together. The support of our family of faith reminds us that we are not alone in waiting for whatever is next.
During this time of Lent, I hope that you will join me in asking God for patience while we wait. Looking back, we know that some of the best things in life come from times of waiting. We can take comfort in knowing that our waiting is not in vain. And we can use our time of waiting to let God work in our hearts and minds. When we allow God to speak to us in times of waiting, he can use that time to give us new vision and strength for times ahead. The morning will come for whatever dark night we are walking through, and when it does, we will once again know that God has been with us each step of the way.
Phil Greenwald, Executive Pastor of Administration
