Waiting

I just finished the book Waiting by Ben Patterson. I started the book last year but never finished it after reading only a few chapters. In the last few weeks, I felt compelled to find it and re-visit it with a fresh eye. This book speaks to all of us who wait; whether it be for a child, a better job, a spouse, healing from a chronic illness, a new home, the list goes on. I thought I'd share some thoughts from the book's epilogue.

"Does it strike you as odd that a book on waiting has scarcely mentioned the word patience or perseverance? Aren't those the virtues that we are to exercise when we are forced to wait? They are, but they are secondary to what really is needed to wait with grace. More basic than patience or perseverance are humility and hope. These two are the attitudes, the visions of life, that make patience possible. Patience is a rare and lovely flower that grows only in the soil of humility and hope."

"Humility makes patience possible because it shows us our proper place in the universe. God is God, we are his creatures; he is the King, we are his subjects; He is the Master, we are his servants. We have no demands to make, no rights to assert. His superiority is not only in power but in love and wisdom as well. He is superior to us in every conceivable way-- in power and love and wisdom. To know that is to be patient."

"Hope makes patience possible because it gives us the confidence that our wait is not in vain. Hope believes that this God of love, power and wisdom is on our side. Everything that comes to us comes by his hand and through his heart. He provides for our needs and fulfills our deepest desires in the fullness of time, not a moment too late, nor a second too soon. Hope assures us that in all things, even in the delays of life, God is working for our good.
To know that is to be patient."

"One of the surprise "goods" that God is working for us as we wait is the forging of our character. What we become as we wait is at least as important as the thing we wait for. To wait in hope is not just to pass the time until the wait is over. It is to see the time passing as part of the process God is using to make us into the people he created us to be."

With all that said, unlike popular thoughts on waiting, to wait is not to be idle. It is a mandatory process when it comes to matters of faith. I am both humbled and hopeful for God's will and the work that He is doing in me as I wait. Certainly now, I can say with more clarity...
Perhaps it is God who is waiting on us, rather than the other way around?

Ben Patterson is the chaplain of Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA.