Finding the Will to Wait

Read: Lamentations 3:25-58

It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. (Lamentations 3:26)

I spend a lot of my time waiting–mostly for DATS (Paratransit) busses. It’s accurate to say that on any given day when I’m not working from home all day, I can spend anywhere from 30 minutes to two-and-a-half hours waiting to get from Point A to Point B. Upon learning this fact, people often make remarks about how patient I am. I usually respond by saying something to the effect that it’s not so much that I’m patient, it’s that I realize that, if I got really uptight and upset every time the bus was late, or every time I had to take a wonky, time-consuming detour in order to pick up or drop off someone else en route to my destination, I would probably have had a stroke or a heart attack a long time ago.

I usually don’t have too much difficulty waiting for DATS, or waiting for other things/people, when I know that there is some kind of set time-frame in which I’ll have to wait–however prolonged that time-frame ends up being. But I have a much harder time waiting in times of major change and/or uncertainty in my life, times when I have absolutely no idea how long I’ll be waiting, or sometimes even what, exactly, I’m waiting for! It’s during these times that I often get very anxious and agitated, as I wonder what’s taking God so long to intervene and put an end to my time of waiting.

The Book of Lamentations was written during a time when the people of Israel were waiting, with great anxiousness, to be delivered from the Babylonians, who had captured and destroyed Jerusalem. Recognizing that the Babylonian invasion was God’s punishment on the people of Israel for their unfaithfulness, the prophet-writer of Lamentations (probably Jeremiah) encourages his people: “It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.”

Gracious Lord, In times of adversity or uncertainty when I find myself unable to move forward, please help me not to be overwhelmed by anxiety or self-pity. Help me instead to wait quietly for you to reveal yourself in and through my circumstances. In Jesus’ name. Amen.