Wait A Minute

I am pleased once again to share this space with my sweet wife. In recent weeks, we’ve been waiting for the Father to answer some prayers. This post is the fruit of some of her conversations with God. I was blessed by it. You will be, too.

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For longer than the eighteen years I lived at home, my dad did shift work at a steel plant. When he worked first shift (7 a.m. to 3 p.m.), I would wait for what seemed like hours for that 1962, yellow Ford F-150 to come around the curve and roll into the driveway. The second I spotted it, my heart would race just a little. Sometimes, it beat with eager anticipation that I would get to work with him in the field, ride the tractor or, occasionally, accompany him on a short quail hunt. Other times, though, my waiting was more worrisome because I was “gittin a whoopin” for an offense earlier that day.

When he worked second shift (3 p.m. to 11 p.m.), the main event I waited for was lunch. That was the important cooking meal for the day because once he left for work, he would not be home till midnight. Lunch was wonderful when daddy worked 2^nd shift. But when he worked third shift (11 p.m. to 7 a.m.), well, nothing good happened. He would come home after working all night and take a nap. If I made noise, I got in trouble. So I waited in silence. Then, he would get up and head to the field till time to get ready for work. I was not invited to join him on those days. He didn’t feel like tending to my endless questions and he did not want the responsibility of seeing that I was safe around the equipment.

When I wasn’t waiting for dad, I waited for my older sister to get home on the school bus. I thought my life would be complete when I could ride that long, orange limousine. Even then, though, I had to wait. In first grade (no kindergarten in my rural Alabama region), I tried hard not to cry because I missed my mom so much. I waited for the signal to raise my head from rest time. My goal was to cry only once before we received our afternoon snacks. If I could make it with just one silent meltdown before I got to eat my daily box of raisins, then I felt successful.

Even though I didn’t know it, I was not waiting alone. One of my relatives was waiting to see if her cancer would return. Another relative was waiting to see if her husband would walk through the door sober. A cousin waited for her husband to return safe and whole from Viet Nam and my aunt was waiting for her son to come home from the same region. They did. Many didn’t.

My relatives and I aren’t the only ones familiar with waiting, though. You have probably spent some time watching the clock, too. And you aren’t alone, either. Lots of folks in the Bible waited. Sometimes they witnessed the event they were waiting for and sometimes they didn’t. Abraham and Sarah waited decades for a baby. Job waited without cursing God even though he had every reason to. David waited for God to rescue him from his enemies, and he made quite a few through the years. John the Baptist waited for Jesus. In the waiting, he did his job telling others about the coming Messiah. And even though John waited and obeyed, he was still beheaded in prison. That’s sobering.

Yesterday, a trusted friend counseled me to be a more patient, godly, waiter. She said to me, “God is waiting for you to wait on Him. He wants you to wait in service, in prayer, in love and in joy. God will be glorified in your waiting.”

Isaiah 30:18 says, So the Lord must wait for you to come to him  so he can show you his love and compassion.
For the Lord is a faithful God.   Blessed are those who wait for his help.

What are you waiting on? Who are you waiting for? And who is waiting on you?