I’m doing a whole lot of waiting these days. Deadlines are getting pushed back, people are taking their sweet time following up with me, answers are taking longer to come than I appreciate. In at least four major areas of my life, it seems “wait and see” is the name of the game.

image via Stuart Miles/freedigitalphotos.net

But the thing is I’m not very good at this game.

Oh, I can agree that waiting is good and biblical (e.g., Lamentations 3:25-26, Psalm 27:14), but fun? Enjoyable? Tolerable? Not so much.

I want resolution so I can get on with living my life. I want conclusions and directions and answers so I can start “doing” whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing in each of these situations. We humans tend to feel more useful when we’re doing things…

I was telling the Lord my feelings about all this today as I waited for the afternoon to tick tock away. I told Him I’d been pretty patient for a pretty long time on most fronts and that I was pretty much ready for results so I can get moving on things.

And He listened patiently. He’s good at waiting for me to get everything off my chest before responding.

And once I was done telling Him how things ought to be – how my time table reads and how badly I want Him to conform to it – a word popped in my mind.

Rest.

As in, “While you wait, rest. Use this time to enjoy Me. Because you don’t know what’s going to happen once you get answers to all the questions in your life. Things could get chaotic quickly, and then you won’t have time to rest. So rest now while you do have the time.”

I knew this idea wasn’t from me immediately because never had I ever put the words “wait” and “enjoy” together in the same thought. In my dictionary, those words are opposites.

I marveled at the idea that the Lord implied He has arranged all the ambiguous circumstances in my life right now to create space for me and Him to hang out. What wisdom He has to tell me to look at waiting as a gift! How much more can I enjoy this period of limbo by choosing to see it as a chance to leisurely spend time with my Lord? This is going to be great for me, I thought.

He let me sit on that for a few hours… and then He leaned in close and whispered, “It’s a gift for Me, too.”

Our God… He loves us so… with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3)… that’s infinte love in both directions on the timeline… He enjoys us as much as we enjoy Him (more!). He just wants some time with us.

And lucky for the both of us, I’ve got nothing but time right now.