“I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait. And in His word I do hope. My soul waits for the Lord. More than those who watch for the morning-Yes, more than those who watch for the morning.”– Ps 130:5-6

This Friday is the big day. We are going to pick up our visa for Brazil in Miami. We have been waiting for this moment for eight months. The wait is almost over but not quite yet. We are still waiting. We are waiting in hope.

“Waiting means not having and having at the same time.”– Paul Tillich

When we walk in faith in our spiritual journey, much time is spent in waiting. I don’t believe that people can wait passively for God to work unless we are waiting for something that is not of concern to us. Most of us wait actively. We try to push things along for God. I thought I knew how God should work and tried to get things going in that direction. I wasn’t successful, obviously. However, it does not mean I am not going to do it in the future. Waiting actively is a struggle of knowing what to do and what is beyond my doing. I think this is part of learning how to wait. We need to come to the point where we realize that our efforts are limited and we don’t have the final word on how things should be. Waiting on the Lord is learning to trust that He is our only Hope.

Hoping and waiting are inseparable. Those who have lost hope do not wait for anything. Some people give up hope because they do not want to wait.

“We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” (Luke 24:21)

These were words of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. They had no longer a reason to wait because they had lost hope, so much so that they failed to recognize the resurrected Messiah walking with them.

Waiting helps us to watch and see what the Lord is doing. Waiting also destroys false ideas of God. Many people give up on God because they tire of waiting for God to act. I wanted God to act in a certain way these past few months. God did everything completely different. He did not follow my timetable. He did not do things according to the way I thought things should be done. God surprised me. He showed me that He was bigger than my imagination. He was bigger than my idea of God. Waiting is allowing God to be God. It is learning to trust God for who He is and not what He can or should do for us.

I cannot see Jesus in my life and in the lives of others if I do not wait for Him. Waiting helps us to look for God. I cannot preach the gospel effectively to the homeless if I do not know how to wait. Unfortunately, no one can be an expert in waiting. It gets tougher as we grow in our faith because the stakes eventually get higher.  St. Paul tells us of one thing that is sure, “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ “(Phil. 1:6).

We do not wait for God to do what we think is best for us. We wait in hope that our Father is doing a good thing in our lives even when we fail to see it. We wait and trust that God knows the best for those whom He loves. This is our hope; now we have to wait and see this in action.

Please share your thoughts.