We're All Humans, Aren't We?

Waiting…

As a kid, I remember WAITING for Christmas to come so I could open those Christmas presents. The days seemed to go by so SLOOOWWLLY that it would drive me nuts. What was I to do? What are we to do when we’re waiting anxiously for something that seems so far away?

I came across this wonderful piece written by Dr. Larry Pillow of A Fresh Start Ministries. I’d like to share it with you this week. I hope you use his words to help guide you through the holidays and beyond.

“Waiting Time is Not Wasted Time”

Waiting time is not wasted time. Matters of importance are being worked out in us, for us, and around us while we wait. Waiting is a necessary part of getting a Fresh Start.

Learn how to wait. Develop patience. “I’ve started to realize that waiting is an art, that waiting achieves things,” author Dennis Wholey writes in The Courage to Change.

The people who are most content, most peaceful and most successful are people who learn how to wait. We cannot always have what we want when we want it but that doesn’t mean we can never have it. When the tide is right your ship will arrive.

Wait. Don’t rush, don’t force matters and don’t quit yet. Be patient. What you can’t have today regardless of how hard you try, you may be able to have tomorrow with little effort. “Today, we would make ourselves crazy trying to accomplish what will come naturally and with ease later,” according to Melody Beattie in The Language of Letting Go.

Timing is everything. There is a reason why you have to wait. When the time is right the door will open, the path will be made clear, the needed resources will become available.

In the meantime, be grateful for what you have today. Be content with the way things are now. Learn, as Paul learned, “to be content in any and every situation” (Philippians 4:12).

Practice patience. One way to do that is to follow the advice of Thomas Carlyle who noted, “Our job is not to see what lies dimly at a distance but to do what lies clearly at hand.”

Be patient. What seems urgent today will likely be unimportant tomorrow. Don’t get in a hurry. Waiting helps you sort out the urgent from the important. What’s urgent is rarely important. What’s important is rarely urgent.

As you wait be assured that God is at work. He won’t make you wait any longer than is necessary. Wait on Him. You will be glad you did.

Cool, eh? Well, I’m done waiting to go home, so see you next week!