“…and they worshipped him….with great joy!”
Luke 24:52
As we enter into the week between Ascension and Pentecost it is a time of waiting.
In our modern culture, we have become bad at waiting. We do not like waiting to cook a good meal, so we go for fast food. We do not like having to learn musical scales in music to train, so we give up whatever musical instrument we have started to play. We do not like having to revise for exams, so we cram it all in at the last minute and forget the information as soon as it’s over. We do not like to wait to get thinner or fatter or become fitter, so we pop pills or take crash diets thinking that will fix us rather than eating moderately and excercising regularly.
But waiting is an ‘action’ too, as we hand over to God our dreams, and hopes and ambitions our bodies and our minds. As the Psalmist says, ‘those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength’. Waiting, when seen in this light, is not just some form of delayed gratification. It is not just a passive exercise - we can be waiting on the Lord to hear what he is going to say to us and in the waiting we come to rely on and draw closer to Him. In the longing, we learn to lean in, in case we miss the whisper, the still, small, voice.
Sometimes the answers are not obvious, sometimes God wants us to realise our need for Him. The need to rely on his guidance before we move forward, to make way for a better plan, than the immediate one we thought would be good. And sometimes the answers are immediate and miraculous. Prayer, when we open it up to an element of ‘waiting’, becomes more dynamic. It gives us time for pictures to form, for promptings to be heard and for the miraculous to enter in.
I have noticed it is often at the last minute that God answers a prayer that we’re desperate for. It’s as if he’s waiting to see if we will really rely on him, rather than on our own strength and abilities.
As our creator He is always trying to teach us to prioritise the better way.
Once we realise that ‘hope’ is abiding in God, and imitating Christ, and that we can only do this by growing in our relationship with him, then it becomes clear. This time of waiting can be a time filled with joy, a time of worship, a time of drawing close to him, so that he in turn draw close to us.
In one way Christ is always waiting, he is waiting for us to see and catch up, he is waiting for us to let him into the dark spaces that we don’t show anybody else and to show us how to fill them with light. He is waiting for us to say ‘yes’ to his Holy Spirit, so that we too can be part of the family of God, filled with his wisdom, his light and his love. He is waiting for us to live as the “Fully alive” immortal beings that we truly are.
He is waiting…
…So, what are you waiting for?
Why not give over today to God all your fears and hopes and dreams and see what he will do?
Do not expect necessarily an immediate answer. But wait in hope and joy, that the God who gave his love for you, loves you more than any earthly family member can.
Sometimes we wait a lifetime for an answer to a prayer. But if we keep waiting on the Lord he WILL renew our strength.
So why not try it today? As you wait on the Lord, why not go for a walk and offer up all you are again in prayer to your father in heaven and to Jesus his son.
Perhaps find a quiet spot to sit and be still. Or in the busy moment imagine being filled with the light and love of his spirit.
So that you, like the disciples, can be filled with joy worshipping him in and through your day.
And just wait to see what the Lord will do. And…
…be blessed!
Helen