Waiting

Waiting. Almost every season of life is marked by some type of waiting. There is the day to day waiting in traffic, in the drive-through line, for your friend to call you back. These moments in which the seconds tic by slowly and loudly can feel agonizing. Yet what are they compared to the days, weeks and years of waiting for a job, a spouse, a baby, graduation from college; the list of monumental periods of waiting goes on

Our human hearts grow faint, torn between the drive to race out of this slow spell or lie down and sleep until the long-awaited answer comes. And while I anxiously watch my morning coffee brewing, feeling my need for my daily dose if caffeine, one friend waits for reprieve from physical pain and another waits for a positive pregnancy and another waits for that wedding date that feels so far away.

I want one of my three genie wishes to be an end to waiting. Let's have have it all now - all the answers, all the blessings. The tragedies too? Maybe. Better firm earth beneath my feet on which I can fall faint than a net in which I lie tangled and held captive.

God, who of course us not anything akin to a genie, does not share my distaste for waiting. He draws me to find purpose and meaning in the wait. As I read through the Psalms this summer, I am constantly faced with this word I hate - wait.

"Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame." v.3

"Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation, for you I wait all te day long." v. 5

"May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you." v. 21

All of these references come from Psalm 25 alone. I was struck by this emphasis, as I long to know what is coming next and rush through this season of temporary jobs to get to the "real stuff" that I've been dreaming of. All of these "waits," however, are in reference to waiting for Jesus. There is an ultimate, overarching wait that will last my entire life. This is the wait to be in the presence of Jesus.

I think of how I wait for the things of this life - my cheeseburger, my internet to start working again, a spouse, my opportunity to travel the world. Do my thoughts regarding the return of Jesus come as consistently and fervently as my impatient thoughts for my next meal or the end of the work day?

Disheartened, I gaze at my own humanity and smallness. Inspired, I dream of what wonders should overwhelm all other visions for my future. For a moment, I can catch the splendor of this particular wait - knowing exactly what I will be gaining and yet having so hazy a view of what such intimacy with Jesus would look like. Surely, if lesser dreams can occupy my thoughts for days and years on end, the mystery and assurance of this future should capture my imagination and fill me with giddy anticipation and impatience at all times.

Surely.

But sadly, they do not.

Not only do I dismiss dreams for this future. I even ignore time with Jesus here in this body, while He is absent physically but very much ready to communicate with me at any moment.

Like a scorned admirer, I forget that he called. I forget to thank him for the many splendid gifts he gives each day. I refuse his invitation to dinner as I pine away for everything else - people, jobs, significance in my work, answers, money, things, places.

It's absurd. I'm absurd. Thankfully, God does not respond like a human lover would.

He continues to plan extravagantly for our bright future and takes delight in each moment I choose to forget all other waiting as I wait for Him.

New Beginnings

I have called Dallas home for just about one week now, but it does not feel like home yet. I have nothing against Dallas. In fact, it has felt like I am on a lovely little vacation, traipsing around town discovering quaint coffee shops and trying an exorbitant number of new restaurants, so many that I began to crave a solid home-cooked meal - just like vacation, except it's not. And I wake up and realize that I better start home-cooking those meals because I am home, and there will not be a natural transition back to normal, routine life. The routine starts whenever I create it, and I think a part of me does not want to create it.

Maybe the transition will be smoother if I imagine this to be a form of long-term study abroad. For my own study abroad in Paris a few years ago, I drifted into la la land for a month and lived life to the fullest, paying little attention to my budget because this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Unfortunately, if I approached this season with the same attitude, I think it would end badly with me in that cardboard box we English majors are destined to inhabit. We are the wanderers, dreamers, learners, and chasers of stories, but we live in a world of deadlines, budgets, and bills. How have I made it thus far, I often wonder. Either I'm a strong survivor or I have a God who likes to shine through my faults and failures.

Of course, I believe it's the latter. I've been there in the meltdown moments that no one else sees, and I know I do not have it in me to muscle through this life. Throughout these months of transition, I have kept returning to this Oswald Chambers devotion:

"Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life - gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means we are uncertain in all our ways, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. This is generally expressed with a sigh of sadness, but it should be an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. As soon as we abandon ourselves to God and do the task He has placed closes to us, He begins to fill our lives with surprises...Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how He will come in - but you can be certain that He will come."

I have been craving some certainty as of late. Just tell me where I am going to work. Assure me that I will have this certain house. Tell me exactly how I will pay the bills. Will my school and work schedule align? Show me what I will do when I graduate and that this education plan is the best course for me to take. None of these answers came when I wanted them. I'm still waiting on some of them.

"In peace I both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." (Psalm 4:8)

"I lay down and slept; I woke again, for The Lord sustained me." (Psalm 3:5)

These are the promises I am given. Nothing specific, only the rhythms of my life and the reminder that The Lord is the steady one guiding these rhythms. Will I have more than His presence? I do not know. Will my bed be in a box? No answer. Only, that The Lord is safety and The Lord is sustenance.

So this is the routine. The surprises are coming, the shaping of a new home life that is still so foreign to me. For now, I lie down and sleep. I wake up. The Lord is there and that's all I know. And that is enough.

Sunlight

This morning, I took a stroll through Downtown Bryan. Wooed by the sunlight after weeks of unusually cold weather for Texas, I wandered past trees such as this one. I traced a trail on one stretch of grass and paced back and forth for some time. The sun beat down, no cloud threatening to shroud its rays. The birds chirped, and an ever so slight breeze blew through my hair.

My thoughts went to "adoration," an approach towards God that I have been challenged to practice lately.  The adoration of nature comes to me like breathing, especially on a morning like this. And I began to think of how God is like the sun, and He is far more beautiful than this "blossom-less" tree. Lately, the winter weather has tried me. And not just the winter weather, but the darkness. A sudden anxiousness will seize me in the twilight. As the day comes to a close, I sense that I have failed, that the hopes I held in the morning light have withered. I doubt tomorrow's ability to produce joy. The unpredictable, unknown nature of dreams looms before me. The darkness of the night makes the sunlight ever brighter.

And I began to think about how God is both light and life. This picture I snapped reflects him so clearly. The tree speaks of life and the blue sky reflects the light of the sun. I long for light and life because I am made to long for God.

Lately, I have been meditating on how suffering and disappointment point us more clearly to our need for God. We should see suffering as a gift from God because it draws us deeper to the only true source of light and life. But that is the catch. He IS the light and life. When we are in the midst of darkness, facing death, depression, or addiction, He is not those things. He is present in these places but they have no mastery over Him. In places of darkness, we as human beings quickly become overwhelmed, but He cannot be overwhelmed. He remains just as bright - just as good, holy, loving, powerful, compassionate, faithful, life-giving. The darkness casts shadows on me because I am part of this earth. But, there is something true of me because I am God's child. The core of me is also light. The darkness can only cast shadows; it cannot seize control of me again. It cannot consume me because it has been consumed once and for all by God, in the same way that the rising sun on a clear day consumes darkness.

"Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you." Psalm 139: 12

I must adore a God who is eternal sunshine! Sometimes, as I adore God for being my Redeemer, I forget to adore Him for those characteristics that make Him ABLE to be my Redeemer. As much as I need to understand His work of redemption, I need to understand His work of creation. In the beginning, He created, and everything He created was good. His nature is orderly and beautiful. His nature has not changed. And because of that unchangeably perfect nature, He has the power to change me.