The Life Giving Wonder of Waiting

by Joel Bates

Discovery Ministries celebrates the end of the summer season each year with a staff party.  One year, we went to a local quarry-turned-swimming resort, complete with imported white sandy beaches, fabricated cliff jumping platforms, and blue water dyed to give the impression of the tropics.  Before I even had a chance to set up my lawn chair, crack open a soda, and enjoy this simulated swimming lagoon, my oldest daughter, Emma, sustained an injury.  Jumping into the heavily dyed water, she could not see the sharp rocks hidden just a few feet below the surface, resulting in a deep, nasty, three-inch gash on her right knee.  It was bad.  She clearly needed stitches.  Frustrated with the resort and all their rock-obscuring blue dye and the fact that I would miss the party, I helped Emma hobble to the car and escorted her to the emergency room. 
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The ER is an interesting, paradoxical place.  You go there because you think you’re dying, but once you’re there, you sit and wait until you’re bored to death.  Maybe this is the hospital’s way of weeding out the extreme cases.  Those who are faking it eventually give up and leave.  

Sitting in the ER waiting room this day, I notice that there isn’t much action.  I see a lot of people sitting quietly, staring straight ahead, some with pained expressions on their faces, all of us just waiting.  I was expecting something different.  On TV they make ER’s seem as thrilling as a war zone.  After all, it isn’t called a “Trivial Room” or a “Negligible Room,” but an “Emergency Room.”  Where was the gunshot victim?  Where was the guy having a heart attack with a paramedic straddling him, feverishly performing CPR while EMT’s and nurses frantically roll the gurney down the hall yelling, “STAT!”  Where was the blood, the mayhem, the disorder?  Instead, I observe an overweight gentleman dozing off a few seats away.  An older lady labors with a nagging cough.  I watch a mother try to calm a dirty-faced little boy, whose cheeks shine with tears streaking paths down them as he sobs quietly and holds his arm close to his side.   

My own daughter’s tears have long since dried, and now she is trying, as I am, to make the best of our situation by thumbing through the pages of an out-of-date Better Homes and Gardens.  The hours tick away, but nothing happens.  More hurt, pained, and ailing people quietly file in than file out, and soon the lobby is full.  I find myself yearning for our name to be called so we can get on with this and get back to normal life.  For the first few hours, I even hold out hope that maybe Emma and I can make it back to the beach for a late lunch, but then as the clock ticks, my hope falters.
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I feel myself beginning to go a little crazy by the fifth hour of thumbing through the same Popular Mechanics magazine.  Finally, like a mythic siren, our name is called and we are directed to an examination room.  A doctor scurries in, looks at the charts, and asks what the problem is.  This is an honest question because at this point the laceration on my daughter’s knee has begun to scab over, and due to the stalactites growing from my ears and the crazed look in my eye, I look more like the one in need of medical attention.  

Waiting is no fun.  The Bible talks about waiting quite a bit, like in Psalm 69:3 where the psalmist writes, “I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched.  My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.”  Sounds a lot like the ER.  But not all waiting is bad.  Psalm 62:5 states, “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from Him.”  There are even some really good outcomes from waiting, like in Isaiah 40:31 where it says, “…but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” 
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It seems like waiting is not only something we have to do in life—it’s ordained by God for our good.  I was considering this when I read the story of David recently.  David, anointed to become king in a covert coronation, gains God’s full endorsement.  Immediately the power of the Holy Spirit comes over him, and he is soon killing giants and pretty much winning at everything.  He’s humble, good looking, chosen by God, a victorious warrior, loved by everyone—except king Saul.  And this is where the plot in David’s story takes a turn for the worse.  He finds himself on the run, hiding out—an outlaw with no prospects, blocked from his calling with no clear path to the throne.  God promised him the kingdom, but for years due to no apparent fault of his own, David would have to wait.  It’s during this difficult season of his life that we learn how he was able to endure.  

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There are a couple times in the narrative that stand out to me as times that David waited when it looked like he could have forced God’s hand and taken control of his destiny.  The first is the time he is hiding in the cave, and Saul enters to relieve himself.  It looks like God is delivering David’s enemy directly into his hands.  Talk about being caught with your pants down!  There’s Saul, ripe for the picking.  The men with David are so convinced that they claim it’s God’s will that they strike Saul down.  But David hesitates and refuses to kill the one he honors as the Lord’s anointed.  Instead, he cuts off part of Saul’s robe and uses it for collateral against sparing his own life.  Saul is humiliated and returns home. 
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Saul doesn’t relinquish his zeal for long, though, and soon he is hunting David again, tracking him to the last corner of the desert.  Every day Saul gets closer to catching David, so what does David do?  He waits until Saul and his men have bedded down for the night and then tiptoes his way into the center of their camp where Saul is snoozing. 

One of David’s mighty men has accompanied him and is thinking the plan involves assassination, but to his surprise, David grasps Saul’s spear and water jug and doesn’t kill Saul but calls to him once he is a safe distance away.  Seeing David holding up the jug and the spear from the adjacent hilltop, Saul is again convicted of his deadly envy and gives up the chase, forced to swallow the pill that David holds in his hand what Saul has placed his faith in—the jug of provision and spear of protection.  David on the other hand, has placed his faith in God’s provision and protection.  

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I marvel at David’s ability to wait for God’s timing and wonder how he was able to maintain his conviction and a willingness to delay when the plan of God seemed to be handed to him on a platter.  Why didn’t David take matters into his own hands?  Why didn’t he seize the advantage—take the initiative?  I think it goes back to two vital foundations:  David believed that God is who He says He is, and David believed that he was who God said he was. 
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As ones who have chosen the Almighty God as Lord, we must accept those beliefs, also.  If God is truly God, then He has the power and authority to make His plans succeed.  If God tells us who we are, then there’s no more argument.  The problem is not with God, His plan, or our identities.  The problem we face is in the waiting.  The courage it took for David to trust and wait, is the same courage and trust available for us through the power of the Holy Spirit.  The Apostle Paul has a good word for us when he states, “For I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me” (2 Tim. 1:12). 

Today, as you endure the waiting game of life, wonder what God’s plans are for you, and wrestle with whether you’re worth it or not, place your trust in God, be kind to yourself as He is, and know that He has big plans for you.  

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“Wait for the LORD; be strong, 
and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!” 
Psalm 27:14