Learning to wait...

How do we wait...patiently?

It's a question we ask ourselves every day. About everything. As humans, patience just doesn't come naturally. Maybe it used to, but it certainly doesn't now. Not in a world where everything is instantaneously accessible. Right at your fingertips. Thanks to technology, we aren't trained to wait well anymore. We have iPhone apps that allow us to order our Chipotle burrito while we are driving to Chipotle. Because we can't wait in the two minute line, or take the five minutes it takes to order and let them make it once we get there. We have Netflix, which lets us rent a movie by clicking a button in order to avoid the five minute drive to the video store. Because we can video chat with our friends who live accross the country, or all the way around the world, we don't have to wait excitedly to see them after a long time apart. I could go on and on. But you know how advanced technology is. How it impacts your life. And how it allows you to avoid the ever dreaded task of waiting.

But we also live in a world, where we encounter waiting every day. I don't mean the type of waiting that consists of waiting in line at an overcrowded DMV, or waiting for a server at an understaffed restaurant to bring you the bill after dinner. Not those little moments in life when we lose our patience and get agitated about a few extra minutes that we interpret as inefficient. Wasteful. Unnecessary.

No...I mean waiting of the heart. The type of waiting we experience over long periods of time. The type that consumes our soul and every ounce of our being. The waiting that rocks our world. Or the waiting for something to rock our world.

We live in a world that emphasizes quick fixes. Easy access. Efficiency. And it doesn't prepare us for the big waits in our life. It tells us that we shouldn't have to wait. That we're too important to wait. Or that waiting is for people who have time for that. But that we are not one of those people.

As a result, we are unprepared when we encounter those situations that require our hearts to settle in uncertainty. To accept that now is not the time. That we don't know when exactly that time will come. Or how we will even know that time has arrived. We grow beyond uncomfortable when we enter these circumstances. We shake to our core. Wondering how we can avoid the waiting. What type of quick fixes we can use as a solution. How to fast forward the waiting period and get there just a little bit faster. Or we complain obsessively about the pain of waiting. So much that we make that period of life go by even slower than it naturally would.

Some of us wait for answers. What am I supposed to do in life? What career should I pursue? What employer will hire me? Where will I move?

Some of us wait for miracles. Those who have loved ones that have been diagnosed with cancer wait for it to be gone. Wondering how long they can continue to fight it. How long it will take to defeat it. Married couples who have tried to get pregnant over and over with no success wait to have their own children. Wondering if they will ever get to start a family. Or how much time they have left to try.

Some of us wait to start living the life we know we're meant to live. Many can't afford the career they really want, and so they stay in a job they hate until they have saved up the money they need to leave it. For the job that allows them to use their passions. For the job that allows them to make a difference in the world.

Some of us wait for those we care about to stop disappointing us. To stop hurting us. To finally follow through. To be there. To be the person we know they are capable of being. Maybe its overcoming an addiction. Returning to be present in our lives after abandoning us. Finally keeping promises that have forever been broken.  Loving us in the way we have always loved them...unconditionally. Accepting us for who we are. Or just showing an interest in coming to know our real hearts.

Tons of us wait for love. Wondering if we'll ever find that person we are meant to share the rest of our life with. Knowing that we were not meant to live it alone. Watching everyone around us seemingly find their soul mate, while we are left...alone.

There are so many things that cause our hearts to be left in a place of waiting. That force our souls to long for whatever it is we're waiting on. And there's a very simple reason: the world doesn't run on our time. It runs on God's. We may think we know when everything should happen. The right time for the right plans. When we're ready for that next step in life. As humans, we have this tendency to think we know it all. But...we don't. Only He does.

In those times of waiting...the ones that create intense longing for whatever it is we are waiting for...we grow more than any other time in life. God does tremendous work in our hearts while we wait. What we see as "waiting," God sees as something entirely different. We just can't see what He's doing until it's done. Maybe not even for years. Until we look back and make sense of it all. Because everything He's working on inside of us is beautifully planned out. Done on purpose. At the perfect time. In the perfect way.

You see, when we wait...we grow.

In strength.
In character.
In heart.
In faith.

We're completely blind to it most of the time. Because we're in the middle of it. And because our minds are too focused on that thing we think we need (which we might, but we might not) that we're waiting for. Our sights are on the future, which makes us think we're waiting. But if we would live more in the present, our eyes might be more open to seeing the amazing benefits of "waiting."

When you have to wait, you learn things about yourself. Your strengths and weaknesses. Your passions and heartcries. Your wounds. Why that thing you're waiting for means so much to you. And when you wait, you learn to rely on God. You start to realize that you can't fast forward through the waiting and have those desires handed to you. You have to push through the storm to get to the rainbow so to speak. And in that time, God is right there waiting with you. Working in you. Waiting reminds us that we are only human. Life is not in our hands. You learn to trust His way and His timing. You learn how to pray. How to cry out to Him in expression of your longings. How to go to Him for comfort when the waiting brings you to discouragement and pain.

We call it waiting...But I doubt God would call it that. Because, while we may see ourselves as sitting still in anticipation for something yet to come...God is busy at work inside us, bringing about enormous change. We may be resting during that period. But God certainly is not. He is moving. Doing more than we will ever know.