Wait Upon The Lord

   As a child I learned this wonderful hymn:

   They that wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings as eagles,
they shall run and not be weary
they shall walk and not faint,
teach me Lord, teach me Lord, to wait.

   But it did not make any sense to me then. Waiting for Christmas, waiting for my baby brother to be born, waiting for school to be out - oh, waiting was so hard. I don't want to learn to wait, I thought. I don't want to HAVE to wait. Surely I won't need to wait for many things in my life.

   How little a child comprehends! I remember thinking, at five years old, that when I was ten, I would certainly be grown up, because I knew my life had been very long, and ten would be a whole 'nother life!

   The wonderful thing about filling your child's mind with hymns, as well as Bible verses, is that they will stay with them all their lives; and in later years, the Holy Spirit will reveal things to them through those words planted firmly in their hearts. How many times over the years, God has used that small and powerful hymn, to speak to me, and guide my heart. At last I have come to understand that it is God's will for me to wait with willingness and patience. It took decades for me to arrive at this realization. Waiting with irritation and aggravation cannot be pleasing to our Saviour. There is no obedience in chafing at the bit. But waiting with willingness is a very difficult task!

   Waiting has always been one of the hardest things for me to endure. As a child, a young woman yearning to be loved, an expectant mother, and different times all the years after. Waiting to save the money to add on another bedroom so I could adopt again. Waiting for the home study, with all the anxiety involved, concerning whether I would again be approved. Then waiting for my dearly longed for child to come home! Waiting ... waiting ...

   Of course, intermingled with the positive times of waiting, there were the negative times of waiting. My young husband's lack of affection, and then abandoning us. Over eight thousand, four hundred lonely nights, waiting to grow accustomed to the empty bed. The paralyzing impotence I felt during my little son's long dying. Then my father's long dying.

   Whether we yearn for something glorious to happen, and it takes so much time; or whether we dread something heartbreaking that is happening, waiting is a state of nothingness, a void. A state of powerlessness.

   Yet again, waiting is an active interruption of life. Therefore it is an action without an act. A motion without a movement. A hiatus of power is an entity of its own.

   We all, as human beings, crave power. We delight in the power to make something happen that we want. We hunger for the power to stop something from happening, that we don't want. We hate finding ourselves in the helplessness of having no control, to either hurry something up, or stop it. Yet every living person must suffer through these negative times.

   The best waiting, of course, is waiting for Jesus Christ to return, and catch those of us who love Him, up to Heaven, to be with Him for all eternity.

   Waiting for Jesus to come, is like the moments after diving, moving down through the water without motion, before turning to swim back to the surface. The pleasure of that experience beneath the water is made delightful by the absolute knowledge that there will be a surfacing, and breaths of sweet air again.

   From the moment of birth, though we are not aware of it then, we are waiting to die. Our minds do not know, but our bodies do. As our years pass, our bodies continue making tiny changes, slowly deteriorating. When we are young and filled with ambitions, challenges, emotions, we generally do not think about death. However, having been taught that Christ would return, and take us home to Heaven, I did think quite a bit about that. I remember asking my mother, at around eleven years old, whether God felt disappointed at my desire to become a mother before Jesus came to take me to Heaven. She told me kindly that God created us with this longing, and that He understood. I was so relieved.

   As years of disappointments and heartbreaks pile up, however, the world begins to lose some of its allure; and being present with God in Heaven becomes an increasing yearning. Even while I love living, and wish to yet live three or four more decades here on earth, my longing for Heaven grows with each passing year. My love for Christ increases. While I want to continue doing something for Him here, at the same time, more and more, I want to go to Him.

   As my mother taught me, God desires for us to enjoy things He has given us here on earth, as well as to swim toward Heaven. If we did not swim beneath the water after diving, to rise again, but simply lay still, we would drown. If we do not make any motions on earth, toward learning what God is teaching us, we will not thrive spiritually. But God never gives up on us. If our lack of motion is caused by emotional or spiritual weakness, we can believe and know absolutely, that with only one feeble, entreating look toward our Saviour, He will respond to us with great love. He will give us what we need, to move again toward Him.

    * He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Isa 40:29