Waiting

In recent weeks, I have been bombarded with this notion of waiting.  And particularly waiting for God, not like in line at the mall (although much of that has been going on, too).  It has been jumping off the page, and for some reason, I have seen it over and over, almost everywhere.  It is something that I haven't really given much thought to in the past.  Nothing that we usually talk about, rarely a hot topic.  But recently, this has come back to me repeatedly, and I feel that it is one of those neglected issues that would really help us if we took the time to consider and implement.

When I think of waiting, and this is how I've conceived of this notion before, I think of standing in line.  Or waiting for the dentist.  It has always given off the flavor of patience, of just sitting there quietly and biding my time.  It never bothered me, really, but just came off as this idea that when you wait for God, that means to just sit and wait for him to do something.  I'm reminded of verses such as the following:

• Why are you in despair, O my soul?  And why are you disturbed within me?  Wait for God, for I shall again praise him. -Ps. 43:5
  
• Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him.  -Ps. 37:7
  
• Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who wait for his lovingkindness. -Ps. 34:18
  
• Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord. -Ps. 27:14
  

There are many references to waiting in the Psalms, but also plenty elsewhere as well.  And the connotations that these verses have always conjured up in my head were of lines at amusement parks, lines at the mall, a traffic jam in LA, or the waiting area at the Emergency Room (which tends to be the longest wait).  Just sit and wait.

And then I heard this song, about a week ago, which was based on Psalm 130.  And my life changed.  The lyrics read: "More than watchmen for the morning, I will wait for you my Lord."  And this got me thinking.

The only experience I have of being a watchman was at a family camping trip at the beach a few years ago.  We had decided to go watch the sunrise from the beach in the morning, and somehow, I ended up being the one who would make sure that we all got up.  Apparently alarm clocks weren't invented yet or something, but I was nominated to sit by the fire pit all night and wait for the sunrise.  When I saw it coming, I would go wake everyone up, and we would go to the beach.  Sounds reasonable, right?  And so I waited.  But I didn't wait like I do at the dentist's office, just trying to pass the time.  Rather, I waited like that annoying little brother you may have had who, on any road trip whatsoever, finds it imperative to ask about every 12 seconds, "Are we there yet?"  That's the sort of waiting you do when you wait for the morning.  When I think of watchmen, I try to imagine how they wait.  Yes, it takes patience, and just sitting there for a while.  But not just that.  When watchmen wait for the morning, there is eagerness, there is expectancy.  I imagine them looking out at the horizon and asking each other, "You think that there's the sun yet?"  And the other would say, "Nah, I don't think so.  Maybe we oughta wait a bit longer before we ring the bell or shout the rifle (or whatever they did to mark the morning)."  And perhaps this is why when you look in your Bible, many of these verses say "hope" instead of "wait", to give it a feel of expectancy and longing, not just sitting and fiddling your thumbs.

Just in case you wanted to know how my waiting story turned out.  I did wait for the morning.  And when it came, I woke everyone up and we went to the beach.  Two small oversights, though.  One, it was overcast, so seeing the sun was impossible.  Two, trying to watch the sunset from the Pacific Ocean is rather useless, since you won't see a whole lot of sun rising.  Nevertheless, we took a lovely nap on the beach, and went back up.  But at least I got a story out of it.

So now, when I think of waiting, and when I see it in the Bible, I think of the 4-year-old the night before Christmas, waking up every hour just to check if it's dawn yet.  I think of the kid asking if we're there yet rather frequently.  Instead of sterile patience and mindless staring, images of expectancy and eagerness and longing flood my mind.  It is a wait for a loving father to respond and act, not the expectation of a root canal.  That, for me, makes waiting such a happy experience.  Because when this loving father does respond and does act, how great and beautiful is that response.