WAITING: SOMETIMES EXCITING, SOMETIMES HARD

Is there anyone out there who likes waiting?

Sometimes I find waiting isn’t hard. Like now. We’ve settled into our new life here in central Florida and now I’m anxious to find out what the Lord has in store for us here.

The last time I was in this place of waiting was after my mom died. I had resigned my position as a leader in a Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) class so that I could remain in Florida with mom. I knew she had only a short time remaining to live and I wanted to spend what days she had left with her. Weeks later, when I returned home, the question that occupied me was, “What now?”.

I had been in leadership in BSF for about 18 years, the last four as the teaching leader, pretty much a full time occupation. While involved in BSF I was unable to serve in my church due to the responsibilities of leadership and now I had the time for that. I wanted to continue serving the Lord as a Bible teacher, but as I looked around I didn’t see any opportunities to do so in my church. So I started praying, asking the Lord for wisdom and direction.

Sometime in the very early fall the chairman of our children’s commission at church made an announcement that teachers were needed for the Sunday school program. Though I was praying for an opportunity to teach, teaching children was not on my list of job specifications. Teaching women was more like what I had in mind. There was a women’s study at church but they already had a long time teacher who didn’t look as if she was going anywhere soon. After the man sat down I could feel the nudge of the Spirit so, even though I didn’t really want to teach children, I went up to him and told him I’d pray about it.

As I sat in my pew during the service the Holy Spirit spoke clearly. I knew I really didn’t have to pray about it. I had already been praying and was pretty convinced this was God’s answer! When the service ended I told that man that I would gladly teach Sunday school. That act of obedience was the beginning of what would be several years of getting to know and teach an amazing bunch of kids, beginning when they were just fourth and fifth graders.

I didn’t know at the time that I would have the blessing, as the years went on, of getting to know and love them as I later worked for two years with the senior high youth group and also taught middle school Sunday school. I graduated up with that original class and then also had many of their siblings. Knowing them and seeing them grow in faith was a joy. I still keep track of them on Facebook from down here in Florida. The Lord added to my blessing later when the woman teaching the women’s Bible class moved and I became a Bible teacher to the women of our church who attended that as well.

What a great ending to all that waiting and praying for opportunities to serve the Lord after BSF. Here I am again in that very place. I long to teach, I believe God has gifted me to teach, but at the moment I don’t see any opportunities on the horizon. This kind of waiting excites me because I know my days of serving the Lord in that way aren’t over yet. Waiting fills me with the thrill of anticipation as I wait and watch for His divine appointments. Appointments I know will come because He has been faithful to provide them in the past.

But there’s another kind of waiting I’m doing now as well. Waiting I don’t find easy or joyful at all. I’m waiting for the Lord to do a work in the life of someone I love. It’s as if I’m watching the lights of a train, blowing its whistle and coming closer, and my loved one isn’t doing much to help herself get out of the way. I wake during the night thinking of her. I can’t sleep. I try to pray, but my mind keeps coming back to the train. I find it hard to wait and trust God during these times. Maybe you do too.

I’ve been in other situations where I’ve asked the Lord to intervene, to wake my loved one up, to shake them into seeing the danger, hearing the noise of the train. Years have passed and I haven’t seen it happen yet. But that doesn't mean He hasn't been active. What I have seen is God’s hand, protecting, extending grace, preserving life, giving time. The Bible reminds me, it’s still the day of salvation. Or as my husband is fond of telling me, “It’s not over yet."

So I wait, endeavoring to walk by faith in the God I KNOW hears and answers prayer, who is faithful, who is able to do what seems to me to be impossible – when the waiting is filled with joyful anticipation, and when it seems to take forever.

It wasn't always easy for the writer of Psalm 43 either. When the waiting was hard, he said:

“Why are you cast down, O my soul?

And why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God;

For I shall yet praise Him,

The help of my countenance and my God.”

I need to remember his words when waiting makes my spirit down and disquieted within me. Hope in God, Dot. There will yet be reason to praise Him.