Waiting

We wait for many things. 

We wait for our food so it can fill us , we wait for trains so they can move us, and we wait for people so that they can love us

What I have noticed about waiting is that we have a time frame for most things we wait on.

Furthermore, our culture is all about shortening the time we have to wait.

From instant mashed-potatoes, to trains that run every ten minutes, we are taught that less waiting is better and no waiting is best.

Life moves at a frenetic pace, and there is no time to just sit around and wait. We need what we need and we need it now.

As each day of my life blazes by and I get ready to go to bed, I realize that I am waiting.

Waiting on something, more filling than food, more moving that trains, and more loving than any person, to find me.

I can get along fine most days. 

Life keeps me busy enough to distract from anything other than the next task on the long list of to-do’s.

My mind thinks mostly short term. What feels good now? Where is the next tweetable moment? Could that sunset be my next Instagram?

But lying in bed, waiting to fast-forward to the next day, I find life slowing down. I begin to feel a little bit empty, a bit scared, and a lotta bit broken.

If you are anything like me, you have been hurt at some point in your life. Some have been hurt less than me, some much deeper. But at the end of the day we are all so broken.

(As I typed that last sentence I noticed the colloquialism “at the end of the day”. Maybe I’m not crazy and there is something to this lying in bed thinking thing!)

But you know I have to be careful,

lying there feeling empty, scared and broken. Because through my emptiness I first realized my need to be filled, through my fear I found refuge with the one who is in control, through seeing my brokenness I was able to find healing.

As I finally think through things at a less break-neck speed than the average day permits, I begin to relax. You see as I think deliberately and slowly, I can compare the thoughts of my desperately wicked heart to the source of truth -- God’s Word.

Each night I realize a little more that I am not empty, because I have an immeasurable God living in me.

Each night I am a little less scared, as I learn to trust to an all-powerful Creator.

Each night I focus a little less on my brokenness, and a little bit more on my loving Saviour who was broken for me.

When I wake up in the morning,

I will resume my frenetic paced life.

I will feel empty, scared and broken again.

I will face thoughts I never thought I would have, or said I would never have again.

I will fall down, I will mess up.

But at the end of the day I am waiting.

Waiting to be reminded who I am, where I am going, and to whom I belong.

Waiting for the day when this painful, messy, broken mess we call life is behind me, and my Saviour’s face is before me.

Until that day, I will keep learning to slow down, and face the reality.

The reality that God is fulfilling me, God is comforting me, and God is healing me.

Love from a broken vessel,

Josh