How often has someone asked “why must I wait?” How difficult is it to wait when you don’t want to wait? When is waiting a virtue and when is it just an annoyance that gets us all wound up. Is waiting a virtue or an impossible task? When you don’t want to wait how well can you wait? Are you good at being patient or does impatience often disturb what didn’t need to be disturbed?
I had an embarrassing moment as I was crossing over US 131 and noticed traffic at a standstill for miles. An accident closed the highway down. My first thought was how terrible it would have been if I had been trapped in that stalled traffic. I am embarrassed to say my first thought was not concern for who might have been hurt in an accident, but how glad I was that I was not in that traffic, as I do not do well at waiting. Waiting is not one of the top ten goals of most people, and the number of people you observe running real lights should attest to that reality!
How good are you at waiting? Is it a necessary evil, or is waiting sometimes a blessing? Are you patient or are you impatient? Is waiting always a burden or sometimes does it make life easier? The Japanese live in a part of the world where earthquakes are common and cannot be avoided. IN many ways they have learned to live waiting from one earthquake to the next. For centuries they built the walls of their homes out of paper, so when the ground started shaking, the walls didn’t fall apart. They knew what they were waiting for, and so they learned how to wait. There was no other way that made sense.
Sometimes we wait to delay inevitable, like when we have messed up and wish to delay having the gavel drop. There are all sorts of reasons to wait. We wait for medical tests. We wait for healing. We wait for love. But the most difficult waiting is when life seems unfair or is more than we can bear.
Saint Paul knew first-hand how difficult it was for him to wait when his life was not fair. For years he couldn’t wait to punish those followers of Jesus who threatened his traditions and understanding of what it meant to follow and obey God. When he had a vision of the risen Jesus and realized how wrong he had been, and finally was able to see the Light of God’s love, he couldn’t wait for eyesight to return. Years later as a disciple of Jesus he couldn’t wait to carry the Gospel to Rome and beyond, but it took years and many months in prisons before he finally achieved his goals. Paul knew what it meant to wait when it just wasn’t fair.
He wrote about that in the letter to the Romans and used some of the most beautiful words he ever put down in writing. He compared the waiting on earth, for healing, for good days, for success, for God’s blessings, and knew everyone else around him was often just as impatient. In Romans chapter 8 he wrote, “all of creation groaning in labor pains … we groan inwardly while we wait for adoption (i.e. Heaven!) In other words, Paul suggests what seem like earthquakes are birth quakes!
He talked about the groanings of this earth. The unfairness. The pain. The trembling. The uncertainty. The fear of what comes next. He wrote to people like us who had to wait when they were impatient for a new day to come. He thought about Jesus’ wait on the cross at Calvary that was full of darkness, earthquake, cries of pain and death! That was the most unfair wait of all, for Jesus, God in the flesh, to wait to experience death in such a painful way.
But, at the end of three days came a birth! Easter began with tears and trembling, but finished with life and cries of joy! Like the birth of a child, this waiting resulted in life. In a moment of divine inspiration, Paul’s words compared waiting for earthly earthquakes to end are instead the birth quakes of life that is changed by God’s love. What a powerful way to tie the manger to the tomb as Easter became the earthquake that changes everything.
Paul’s image is powerful. Just as earthquakes create mountains and valleys, labor’s pain is the incredible gift of new life. One of the joys, these days, is that dads can witness birth. But only a mom can experience the full impact. As a husband, it is difficult to watch the intense pain that comes with contraction after contraction, and know there is nothing I can do to change what is going on.
But there is also no greater miracle, in my mind, than the love of a mother who can endure nine months of body change and then the pain of childbirth. I know personally of a young couple whose first child was born after an incredibly long and difficult delivery. The wait for a baby was finally over and the day of birth had arrived. But he mom to be was in painful transition labor for 17 hours with incredible back pain coming with each contraction. Her husband had to push against her back hour after hour, with every contraction until finally the time had come and the child was born. After the mom held that gift of life in her arms her husband worried if she would have to endure such a painful wait if they ever had more children. And her first response to her husband’s tears was “Oh, it wasn’t that bad!” Only a mom can respond to difficult waiting in such fashion. And only a Savior who has endured even more pain can assure us of the same.
In Romans, Paul lifts up the special gift that faith imparts on our waiting, so that no matter what we face, how much we tremble, or how great is our fear, faithful waiting is rewarded with faith-filled peace.
Jesus dealt with the same issue when asked about pulling pesky weeds. His answer was “no, just wait, unless you might damage the wheat. Let them grow side by side and we’ll sort them out in the end.” Life is full of waiting, and often that waiting is painful, but the end of our wait is assured.
In our day we might consider how strong weed killers can keep crops weed free, but then the run off from such powerful chemicals can get into the water supply and cause more damage than anyone intended. Sometimes, it is best to wait.
Suffering and unfairness in life aren’t goals, but help us to remember that we aren’t God, and God is the only solution in the end. In other words, without pain, would we truly know Christ at all? Without the cross, would Christ truly know us? It is in becoming one of us that Jesus, allows us to become one with Him! The cross IS the moment of God’s greatest love and triumph as HE embraced the most devastating struggle of being human and accepted it as his own.
He suffered what was not deserved. He surrendered what was rightfully his. In that painful struggle, a labor of love, a new birth emerged that brought life to the dying and hope to the lost. We have hope because he stooped to our level, so that he could lift us up to His. The question should never be WHY must I wait, but rather HOW shall I wait?” Remember a father welcoming a prodigal son, Noah’s boat building when there was yet no rain, or Israel’s faithful 40-year trek through the desert.
Life is full of waiting, but some waits are worth it when we remember we are not waiting alone! In that same section of the letter to the Romans Paul wrote: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us … Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”
Why must I wait? Sometimes there is no good answer, but it always becomes easier when we know it is part of life, and more than that, when we know WHO is waiting with us and WHAT we are waiting for. When the most important wait has been erased, maybe it helps with the little waits that come more often than we would like. Instead of quickly crying “why must I wait” faith brings a new prayer asking God to help us learn “how to wait!” That is an earthquake changed to a birth quake and a gift God can help us learn to embrace.