WAITING FAITHFULLY

 

Let me confess it- while I’m better than I used to be, patience still eludes me. When I am waiting in line and actually see someone writing a check, my heart skips a beat. The same emotion comes over me when I’m in a traffic jam. Years ago, Sherry and I caught up with a long… line of cars on the way back from Davenport. I could see the line of cars waiting all the way to the Mississippi River. I could also see the “right lane closed ahead” sign and the fact that the right lane was empty. There was no one in it. Not a single car. So, I went for it and drove 75 miles per hour until I found a chance to get back in the left land, in front of everyone. I took a little pride in my move, but Sherry said that I could’ve been shot!

Waiting in line is one of the things that tests our patience. So is sitting in traffic, and dealing with the DMV. Some people get impatient when they wait for a package to arrive and others throw a fit when they’re trying to assemble a piece of furniture. How do you deal with things that try your patience? Do you lose interest and walk away from the very thing you were waiting for? Or do you use your time to prepare yourself for the very thing or person you’re waiting for?

 

Someone told me long ago that I shouldn’t preach on any Biblical passage until I understood the good news within it. This advise makes sense to me. So I will focus my comments on patience and on ways of waiting that prepare us for the very thing we’re waiting for.  When I wore a “younger man’s clothes”- to use Billy Joel’s phrase- I did a lot of bass fishing and I discovered that there is a form of waiting that is anticipatory and proactive. I learned that it is important to keep your eyes on the goal. Instead of sitting on a river bank, hoping to get lucky as you stare at a bobber, a good bass fisherman changes lures, and moves to spots that are more likely to be productive. He (or she) works their boat back into wooded areas and cast their lures in hard-to-get places. Their waiting time is prime time for them to get prepared, and for Christians, we prepare for Christ’s coming by living AS IF Christ lives with us now, which He does when He appears as one of the least among.us. Living AS IF we believe… is much of what “faith” really is and we must keep on living as believers until our lives here on earth… come to an end.

 

Let me offer one more confession- as a Christian who was saved and reborn out of GRACE alone, I  struggle when I see that one of the street people who was invited to the banquet… was thrown out of the banquet room because he wasn’t dressed properly. And my heart aches for the 5 bridesmaids who weren’t allowed to attend the wedding because they weren’t wise enough to bring some oil with them. It doesn’t seem fair- but just being a bridesmaid was grace, and being invited to the King’s banquet was grace, and the word that we are able to read and study in the Bible every day is grace, and gathering to worship with people we know and love… is grace, and being able to provide clothes and share food with those who need it… is grace, and the prayers we are privileged to offer to God, for others, are grace. Indeed, our waiting time itself is grace.

 

As we wait for our Lord’s coming, we ought to serve Him more and more with each passing day. We need to get busy and invite the Holy Spirit to have his way with us, to re-create us into a person who will please our Lord and be a blessing to others. As we wait for Christ’s return… or for God’s call in our lives… or for something on our “bucket lists,” we need to keep our eyes open for opportunities to make a difference and to do what we’ve been called to do. WWJD. What would Jesus do? Are we doing it? Can we do it better” What is our ministry and why would we quit doing it, just because we’re waiting. Jesus had work to do too and He kept at it to the end. He was called to witness to His Father’s kingdom by feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and empowering those who have been shut-down, shut-out, and shut-up. And He kept doing these things… until He took his last breath. When he set his face toward Golgotha, Jesus didn’t quit serving His Father, He continued to teach, heal, invite others, and give hope to people who needed hope. From the moment Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey to the moment he uttered, “It is finished,” Jesus never quit serving and blessing others,,, and neither should we! Amen!