i'm sure i'm not the first person to think of it. how befitting is the phrase, in the meantime. i laugh.
i also tremble.
in the meantime? it's what we do when we are waiting. hoping. looking forward to something else. something more. sometimes it is something longed for, for such a long time. or other times, it is an answer we may not want to come, an event that we fear. this stretch, this span, these moments for us become mean when we feel them as cruel, miserly, unmerited. mean time.
"I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for." (Jeremiah 29:11)
in actuality, it is only our capacity to wait that is mean - poor, limited, low - while Scripture teaches unapologetically that all of this life is a waiting. Read all of Romans 8! Here's just a portion.
"All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good."
will we allow the waiting to make us mean?
and by that i mean humble enough to receive our future.
and by that i mean humble enough to receive our future.
1 comment:
Sherri I stumbled across your blog today and oh how I needed to hear the truth of waiting and how it does not diminish us. I feel so sad sometimes over the lostness of my children and the expectations I had for them. God teach me to wait on you with joy as you complete a good work in the lives of me and my children.
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