Wait

I have tried hard to come up with another story this week but the word “wait” has settled strong and sure in my heart. Perhaps it is a word in season. Obediently, I type not about this funny tale or that unusual account. Instead, I write “wait” and underline it, not sure exactly where we will go from here. And now I’m sitting here doing just that; biting my lip, smoothing my hair, looking left and right and upwards, pausing to see what might happen next.

We live in a time where we want and can actually expect our desires to be gratified immediately. In place of brewing we now have instant coffee and there is no need for a stew to simmer and reduce when a microwave meal can be ready in two minutes. Why send a letter when you can message Russia at noon and get a reply at fifteen seconds past? The way they longed for a written letter in days gone by is a thing of the past and I wonder if along with the waiting we have also forfeited the high value placed on those carefully formed words. Instead of closing our eyes and holding the treasured reply to our chests, we glance at the screen, sometimes whilst talking to someone else, and moments after we forget what we have read. But we are being productive right? Just at what cost?

As I write, three of my friends are waiting for their babies to arrive. We love them already yet we have no idea what they look like or who they are going to be. We imagine and long for and anticipate. In the one instance the waiting has got to the point where the verse “hope deferred makes the heart sick” is feeling sorely true. A sick heart is a cruel burden. But aaaaah, it goes on to say “a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13 verse 12) Heart sickness must and will give way to a tree of life as we learn to manage and even welcome the hard mysteriousness of the wait. Those that wait find that the reward is all the sweeter. Waiting is tough and it hurts, but it does not mean something has gone wrong. Waiting is when we prepare and our hearts grow to a point that they are ready to receive the gift. There are lessons that can only be learnt and muscles that can only develop when there is delayed gratification. It is good and necessary, you might just need a comforting hug or a distracting run or a piece of cake in the meanwhile, especially if you have to wait for a very long time.

We would never dig up a seed would we? James Gordon Lindsay said “Don’t dig up in unbelief what you planted in faith.” Digging up the seeds would be nothing short of sabotage. It would be death itself, even murder! In my mind’s eye I see volumes of stringy, slimy frogs’ eggs swaying in some water. I don’t particularly like frogs but it’s a feel good image and all the conditions are right for life. If those eggs were scooped out of the pond by an ignorant, impatient park keeper wanting to clean out the pond in readiness for frogs and other creatures to inhabit it, what pity and sorrow! The eggs, so far in appearance from what they will be in time, are discarded and along with them, all the magnificent potential for life. Helping a butterfly out of a chrysalis because it appears to be in trouble may well prevent it from ever flying. Apparently it’s the struggle that activates chemicals and causes fluids to flow which in turn strengthen the butterfly’s wings. We want to fast forward the struggle, or even delete it.

We live in an age where we are very capable of speeding up all sorts of things and it’s our privilege to be able to say “I choose to let this unfold in its own time. I choose not to interfere.” It seems to me that the best things take time. I am not sure how I can say that with any authority but a loaf of bread kneaded, risen, shaped and cooked on the coals early one morning whilst camping cannot be compared with a loaf that comes off the production line in a packet. Pottery mugs, bowls and tea pots have been thoughtfully handmade for me over the years and they are in a league of their own. That’s another topic altogether. When things take time and are made with love, they are priceless. Once I crocheted all year to make my sister a blanket for Christmas. She would never have been able to afford that blanket, nobody would have. When we refuse to wait and we create machinery and conveyor belts to address our need for more sooner, we lose the personal touch, the taste of love and the art of the skill and we trade it for identical items that are mass produced. Nobody in the whole world can have a blanket like my sister. Unaffordable yet absolutely free.

Spring can only wake up when Winter falls asleep. Winter yawns and settles down to rest as Spring rubs her eyes and stretches. Snow melts, bulbs vibrate and the next thing bluebells and daffodils erupt along with all the animals that were hibernating. Spring has sprung but it has waited for it’s time and because of that, we are more than ready to welcome her in. Could it be that our inability to wait is at the heart of a generation of entitled individuals who might just be interfering with the seasons? We have not understood that we are trading ancient paths and eternal truths with new-fangled, speedy ideas that have not yet stood the test of time.

And so we wait. We trust that what has been planted will grow into its fullness and that a harvest time will come. Instead of empty, ploughed lands we will see golden wheat swaying in a breeze, brilliantly lit by the sun as if on fire. Instead of a dull cocoon, we will see a butterfly in the sky like a rainbow of hope, giving us courage for the next time we might be asked to be patient.

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.” (Isaiah 9 verse 2) Those words were written long before the Light of the World arrived in His mother’s arms. In profound response to the seeds of those prophetic words, the day came when the King Child arrived. Divinely human! Promise fulfilled. Saviour of the World. A Tree of Life in who we find our true son ship and family line; adopted and grafted in as we accept a merciful chance at being reborn. We wait for many things, but in this case, the waiting is over. Today is the day!

2 Corinthians 6 verse 2

I tell you, now is the time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation.