Russellings of the Spirit

“Just wait. It will happen.”

Don’t you just love it when you hear those words… almost always spoken with a slight, knowing smile.

Today, if I heard that phrase from someone, I might seriously think about renouncing my personal pledge of non-violence. I might just haul off and pop somebody.

WAITING is about all I seem to be doing these days. 

Last week we had to wait longer than I can ever remember to finally know the results of the 2020 presidential election. 

• Some say that they are STILL waiting…

Joan and I waited two months longer than originally estimated for our kitchen remodeling project to begin. Now that it is finally underway, we are waiting less-than-patiently for it to be DONE! 

• In the meantime, though, we are discovering an amazingly wide variety of things one can cook using only a microwave or a toaster oven. 

On the national level, most of us are still waiting (again, not terribly patiently) for some kind of “dialing down” of the state of emergency around the COVID-19 pandemic… whether through the distribution of a vaccine or a decrease in infection levels or some other solution. 

Most of the time, waiting does not sit well with me. I am impatient. I squirm uncomfortably at the idea of sitting or standing in the same place for multiple minutes. I am that guy at the grocery store who carefully scans each cash register line to see which one is moving the fastest before I pick the one to enter. And yes… I have also been known to switch check-out lines even after initially committing to one.

To be clear… I am not at all proud of this character flaw of mine. But I suspect I am not the only one afflicted with this particular defect…

Am I?

So – assuming I am not talking to the four winds here – why do we find it so hard to WAIT? Why don’t we trust the wise guidance of our elders who told us things like, “Good things come to those who wait,” or, “Patience is a virtue”? Why do we seem to be incapable of learning from the biblical example of the children of Israel who had to endure not one… not two… not three… but FOUR periods of exile from their homeland… waiting for God’s deliverance?

We might blame our impatience on the surrounding culture. It is hardly news that we live today in a time of instant gratification on nearly every front; Instant cooking, instant information, instant entertainment, and instant relationships are all available to us… at the click of a button. Or mouse. Or computer key.

Or we might blame our elevated standard of living, thanks to easily available consumer credit. Christmas club savings accounts are now a thing of the past thanks to the MAGIC PLASTIC CREDIT CARD! You say you want it? No problem… go get it and CHARGE it… but be sure you ignore that 22% annual interest rate spelled out in microscopic type on the statement. 

But as tempting as those two scapegoats are, I suspect the real answer lies a lot closer to our inside jacket pocket. That is to say, the real underlying cause behind our epic inability to wait comes from right HERE (… points to chest). 

I have decided that my impatience – maybe yours, too – stems from the absurd and often outsizedsignificance we give to that thing out there waiting on the horizon. Here is what I mean; when we allow ourselves to believe that the thing we are waiting for… whether it is the election results, the completed kitchen, the end of quarantine, the vacation, the diploma, the new car, the new job, the new spouse, the concert, the football game, the WHATEVER… is the thing that will finally make all things right in our life, we have a VERY hard time waiting for it to arrive.

Once again, we have been “caught out,” believing that our ultimate fulfillment in life comes from lining up the right set of CIRCUMSTANCES, forgetting that God calls us instead to cultivate the right RELATIONSHIP to our circumstances, whatever they might be. 

Why do we have such a hard time remembering that, “… the grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.” (Isaiah 40:8, NRSV). 

Or why can’t our thick skulls remember and appreciate the truth that tells us, “He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:29-31, NRSV). 

Come. Sit here with me and wait. 

It will happen. Just like God said it would.

Abundant blessings;