While Waiting

"Wherever you are, be all there."

~Jim Elliot

How do we deal with delays? The most telltale sign of a misfit is when we feel like we do not belong. Imagine with me a time when your heart is everywhere except where your person is; or when the little lapses or windows of spare time in the day inevitably trigger a deep yearning to be elsewhere. 

When the answer is to wait, it can be quite difficult to handle. Everyone knows the theory about the yes, no, and wait, but it takes someone to be in a desperate position to fully comprehend the difficulty of waiting. Right now, if a door opens up, I would almost certainly charge through it. But of course, waiting, albeit the most trying, is the best litmus test to find out where we are with respect to our faith (trust) in God as our Provider and our Master. 

Yet, I want to challenge a very unhealthy notion. So far, many people have assumed the uncomfortable phase to be the phase of preparation, and that's pretty much the advice given to struggling individuals. I hate to downplay the importance of preparation, but I would rather point out and quash its overhyping. Basically not all difficult periods in our lives are preparation phase by nature. They would eventually become preparation phase because of Romans 8:28, but it takes one to come through and come out of this period. Unfortunately many don't. Why? Because many got stuck in the preparation phase. 

It becomes socially acceptable (and biblical too) today to say wait, because that is the sure way to prevent mistakes. We call it the status quo bias- it is better for us to not try and miss some things than to do something and end up wrong about it. We end up justifying our own sense of being stuck, and we try to convince ourselves that it is alright to be where we are. Recall the famous verse in Psalm: we need not fear as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Yes, we walk through, we don't go in and say that this is good for me, so I will stay here for a while. WE DON'T BELONG, AND WE CONTINUE TO WALK THROUGH. 

I want to assure all that it is alright to feel out of place, because that is precisely the right thing to feel. Remember the Israelites in Egypt, and then in the wilderness. At the initial phase, they wanted to go back to Egypt because the future looked bleak, and they remembered that back in Egypt they were not thriving but at least they were surviving. They didn't believe God's promise. But the most dangerous portion is when they were in the wilderness. They refused to go and claim the promised land, and some decided to stay behind and settle. It is not the bad and the good that will derail us, but it is the okay, because in the okay phases, many things are easy for us to compromise. 

Paul says to go amongst them and become like them, but becoming like them has to be accompanied by a maintenance of our walk with God. Cling on to the ultimate promises, and learn well what we have to learn, and get out whenever possible. Abram did not know where he was going, but he knew that he couldn't stay at where he was. Likewise, don't settle in to a place where we are not called to, but truly be like Jesus. In His 30 years of preparation, He was constantly on an upward climb- He started debating with the pharisees at 12.