It is perhaps inevitable at this time of year to be thinking a lot about waiting. Advent, with its emphasis on the coming of a Messiah, encourages us to rehearse the centuries of waiting that culminated in the coming of the Christ-child.
Just the other evening, we had a houseful of people together to rehearse the story, to remember the waiting. We sang carols and read scriptures and ate Christmas treats and entered once again into the story of how ages-old prophesies were fulfilled in Jesus.
The thing about this rehearsal is that we already know the end of the story. Even the youngest of the kids at our carol evening could have told you how the dreams, and the prophesies, the angelic visitations and the star all ended in a baby: the Son of God was conceived within Mary, he took on flesh, he was born to a regular down-at-heel family and then grew into the reality of what it meant to be this embodied God-man, doing extraordinary things within his ordinary life, and ultimately giving his life so that we could become the rescued ones.
Waiting when we don’t know the end of the story, now that is so very much harder.
I think of friends who are waiting for healing, or for the healing of loved ones. Others who are waiting for relationships to be reconciled. Waiting for debts to be paid. Waiting for court cases to be resolved. Waiting for businesses to grow. Waiting for hearts to be whole again. Waiting for prayers to be answered. Waiting …
I have been in a season of waiting for what seems like … oh, I don’t know, six years!! A big shift happened when we left South Africa and I began a master’s program in Spiritual Formation. It seemed as though the work I had been doing, even the way I had been living was changing. Into what, I wasn’t sure. The picture that came to mind was of a little boat leaving the safety of the shore to venture out across an expanse of unknown water. I felt for sure that the little boat would once again find its harbour. But would that be when we moved to Spain? When I graduated from my master’s degree? When I had staffed that same master’s program? When different individuals joined me to form a team?
I felt certain that the end of the waiting would be obvious. As self evident as a baby that is safely delivered from its in utero state to the waiting world. But no, it has not been obvious. It has not been sudden, or dramatic, or climactic.
This waiting has been uncomfortable and uncertain. And yet, somehow, in the waiting there has been much that I would not have wanted to miss had things moved more quickly. I believe that God does important - even invaluable - things in our times of waiting. Waiting causes us to face ourselves. Our impatience, our fears, our desire for self determination. Or is it just me?
There is a sort of stripping away that happens as we wait. I have had such a strong sense that my own ‘success by goal-setting’ approach to life had to be set aside in order to step into the waiting and receive from it the gifts it had to offer. There is a gift to be received from lack of clarity, that is a sharpened sense of listening and attentiveness. There is a gift to be received from feeling unsuccessful and unaccomplished, which is to redefine success and accomplishment. There is a gift to be received from entering into a season where time seems slowed down, which is to become more practised in the art of being present.
The truth is that waiting can be a lonely time. The aloneness is quite possibly one of the most difficult things about waiting. If this is you, you could do worse than take time to consider Mary. Her experience of waiting was no doubt full of fear and uncertainty. She did not know the end of the story, she only knew - or thought she knew - that God had spoken to her. What she thought he had said was out-of-this-world; I wonder how many times she fought the rising bile in her throat, a reaction to the terror of wondering at the audacity or madness that had led her to actually believe what she thought she had heard. Did she experience the deep peace of sensing God with her through every moment of her 9 months of carrying Jesus? I doubt it, somehow. I reckon she had to face all the same twists and turns of faith and fear that we each navigate as we wait for God’s word to be fulfilled.
The thing I love about Mary’s story, the thing I hold onto, is that once she had said ‘yes’ to God something was begun within her that became inevitable. On the days she doubted, the baby within her continued to grow. Her doubts did nothing to arrest his development. She lived through days of doubt, just like we do, then awoke to a new day with fresh provision of faith (sleep is a wonderful gift). She just lived one day of that pregnancy after another until the baby was born. The miracle that God was accomplishing required her participation but was not dependent on her mood, or her faith. Some things are for God alone, and for this I am grateful.
So, if you are waiting - for an answer, a change, a resolution, a fulfilment - may you receive from the richness that waiting offers. May you be changed by the waiting in ways that deepen and enlarge you. And, ultimately, may you find a sweetness in the journey regardless of the destination.
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