Waiting...

If I were ever put in charge of hell, I would make it a waiting room.  Nothing to do and nowhere to go.  I wouldn’t make it the place of suffering, darkness and fire;  I would make it the place where one waits to enter the place of suffering, darkness and fire.  

Waiting is hard to do.  

I don’t mind preparation.  Before making a decision, I can take all the time necessary to investigate and research to make an informed decision.  But that’s not waiting;  that’s preparing.  Waiting is what you do after making the decision and before anything actually happens.  Or more accurately, what you don’t do...

Though hard to do, waiting is part of life.  

We wait in lines, wait for green lights, wait for the train to pass, wait for the game to start, wait for our grades to be posted, wait for a table, wait for the checker to scan our groceries...we wait. 

When we’re children, we wait to go up.  When we’re single, we wait to get married.  When we’re sick, we wait for the return of health.  When we’re in mid-life, we wait to retire.  When we’re old, we wait to die.  

Troubled by God's lack of intervention and fearing the threats around him, David said as much to us as to himself:  "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart, and wait for the Lord" (Ps. 27:14).  It's good counsel for any of us who are frustrated by our circumstances.   

What makes waiting hard?  We live in a fast-food, instant-gratification, email-Facebook-Twitter-text message-cell phone world.  We buy RAM to make our computers faster, pay more for faster internet speeds, and become annoyed when pictures fail to load instantly.  Modern life has no patience with waiting; yet it is powerless to prevent it.  

What’s good about waiting?  
Without waiting, we will not develop patience.
Waiting allows us to think, to slow down and ponder.
Waiting gives us a chance to observe, to look around not at life at a blur,  but at still life.  

Waiting offers us what we need and want, what we try to gain when we cut corners and why we hate waiting:  time...  Time to think, to relax, to pray, to remember, to breathe.

“All good things come to those who wait,” someone asserts.  Whether they do or not, we will wait.  

C’mon: What are you waiting for?