Confession 9: I do not like waiting – Part 3

Last week’s posts on waiting kept getting longer and longer, but here is the finale to the waiting posts.

As a teenager I repeatedly heard this famous phrase, “True Love Waits.” Which is a good phrase, I suppose. It implied that true love would wait for the perfect person and then they together would wait until marriage to have “the sex.” So when a Christian 16 year old was told that true love waits we expected them to keep their hormones in check for roughly another 5-7 years until married. The question is, “What are we supposed to do while waiting?” Well, no one ever said what we were to do while waiting because I suppose the plan was that we would (A) finish high school, (2) go to college, and while there (iii) date and find the perfect person. The reason no one ever explained what we should do while waiting is that no youth pastor expected the wait to go past college graduation. So for those of us who have been waiting for a much lengthier time I ask again, “What the heck are we supposed to do while waiting?”

 Well, here’s a short list of things to do:

Note: I realize that “True Love Waits” is referring more to the waiting of sex but that is a completely separate blog. You’ll just have to wait until I decide to get around to that one. In the meantime practice a little self control and focus on these other things.

1. Live in the moment

Being single is not a holding pattern that you’re in. There isn’t a pause button on life. This is your life – so live it to its fullest!

2. Stay Focused

Just as the watchmen (see part 2) had to stay focused on the job in front of them you too have things to do. Don’t dream so much about the future that you forget to focus on today. Stay focused on what matters – your relationship with God, your family, your friends.

3. Think Big

What are you waiting for? Do you want to finish your degree? Go back to school? Travel the world? Learn a new skill? Then do it. Being single gives you a great opportunity to do these things so take advantage of that.

4. Make things happen

If, as I said in part 2, you’re done waiting and getting married and having a family are at the top of your list for 2012 then stop talking about it and put yourself out there. If you don’t work with any eligible people, if you’re the only single at your church, and if after work you go straight home then chances are this time next year nothing will have changed in your life. So review the list in #3 and meet some new people because even if they aren’t single they probably know people who are. Get out and meet people and see what happens.

4. Enjoy life

Don’t become bitter about the life God has given you. Number one way to stay single forever – be bitter and make sure no one likes to spend more than 3 seconds in your presence. Learn to be happy with who you are and where you are in life. If you don’t like how your life is going then change what you can, but learn to say with the apostle Paul, “I have learned the secret to being content in any and every situation.”

Bottom line – maybe true love does in fact wait, but your life doesn’t. I don’t really know what to do while waiting except to live my life. So I encourage you to also make a life for yourself that you want and then enjoy it.

For example: I graduated Bible College single – who does that?! So I moved to another country for a few years where I learned a lot about myself, allowed God to develop character in me and teach me things I wouldn’t have learned any other way, and made life-long friends. Then I made up a job that would allow me to travel all over Europe. Along the way I have come to embrace the life that God has given me because it’s ridiculously awesome and full of people, friends, rich experiences, and encounters.

So again I say: Don’t wait – live.

Confession 8: I Do Not Like Waiting – Part 2

So as I began to write about waiting I started filling up pages and decided that you probably didn’t want to read a term paper on the topic – although today’s post is quite the essay. So I’ve split it up into 3 parts. Although, the more I work on it the longer it seems to get! At any rate, here is part 2.

A few weeks ago I watched a video with a poet named Janette…ikz who spoke of waiting. (To view this video click here.) In it she references Psalm 130:5-6, which reads, “I will wait for the Lord, my souls waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.” As I’ve meditated on that verse I’ve begun to view “the wait” in a different light.

Now, not to get all sermony on you (although I am ordained so it’s okay for me to preach), but here are 3 thoughts on this verse.

1. The watchmen were active in their wait.

The existence of watchmen who would stand guard around the city at night can be found in ancient civilizations. They would wait through the long night ready to sound the alarm should an enemy approach. When I think about the watchmen I picture them waiting in the dark on a moonless night.  I imagine them just a little bit on edge and a little bit frightened and unsure of what was out there, but longing for the first rays of dawn. The knowledge that as soon as the first hues of (insert color here as I’m never actually up at dawn to see the sunrise) appear on the horizon their work would be over is what kept them going.

They had a job to do during the long night though. They had to remain alert in case an enemy came to surprise them in the night. Their job wasn’t simply to sit around and wait for morning. Rather they had to remain active to stay awake and alert and ready for anything.

This makes me ask – am I staying focused on the task at hand – the task the Lord has given me – or am I simply letting life pass me by today while I search the horizon for what’s ahead?

2. It is in God’s word that I will put my hope

I know too many singles whose constant hope is that they will meet the person of their dreams and fall in love and get married. Is that all you are hoping for in life? If so that’s a lot to put on your future spouse. I’ve put all my hope in this one basket – marriage. What if that’s not God’s plan for your life? Will you be okay? Will you still be able to hope for good things? Will you still be able to worship God will all that you are?

A few years back the song that we were singing all summer at our camps and programs said something along the lines of, “You’re all I need, You’re all I want.” I found myself boldly belting out that first line along with everyone else and then as I really listened to the words I realized that I couldn’t honestly sing the second phrase. God was not all I wanted. He was definitely all I needed, but not all I wanted. And to sing that would not only be a lie, but it would be like declaring that all my hopes for my future were being set aside and instead of wanting a husband and a “normal” life I would say I’ll want You, God, and only You and what You have for me. It would mean surrender on a whole new level. So for that summer I remained quiet during that song.  

But God’s word is full of good things and promises – He will fill the hungry with good things. He will set the solitary into families. He will be a father to the fatherless. God is love. He will never leave you or forsake you. God is faithful.

In these things I have learned to place my hope. I have learned to surrender and have come to a place where I can now sing loudly, “You’re all I want.”

3. I will wait for the Lord

Our lives are short and eternity is, well, long! (Could I be more profound?) Someday I will stand before the Lord and will be judged according to what I did for Him, not on how well I married. Waiting upon the Lord is good, but waiting for my life to start once I get married is not. God has given me all that I need for life (2 Peter 1:3) and that may or may not include a spouse.

I will wait for the Lord’s timing. I will wait for the Lord’s direction. I will wait for the Lord to speak and to lead. I will wait for Heaven.

I will NOT waste my time here on earth waiting for a spouse. I will NOT wait for my life to have meaning. I will NOT wait to fulfill the call of God on my life. I will NOT wait for marriage for my life to begin.

I’m done waiting – I never liked it anyhow.

I will wait for you, Lord, to speak and then I will act upon that. I will stay focused on the task that you have given me throughout the long night even as I look with hope to the horizon. Amen.

Confession 7: I Do Not Like Waiting – Part 1

Waiting is not cool or fun. I’m impatient while waiting for anything – the light to turn green, for a video to buffer, for the book I want to come out in paperback because I’m too cheap and/or it messes with my OCDness to buy a series in a mixture of hard back and paperback (weird, I know.) I don’t like to wait.

Somehow people get the impression that singles and waiting go hand in hand. We’ve been told it all our lives – wait for God to bring that special someone into your life, true love waits (more on that later this week), just you wait God’s just putting the finishing touches on the person He has for you. I feel that these are all sort of dumb things to say on many levels, but that’s not really the point of today’s blog. The point is that waiting has begun to have a negative connotation to singles. It implies a few things: (1) that there’s nothing to be done on our part – we just have to wait, (2) that waiting is bad, boring, and/or a giant lesson in practicing self control – because true love waits, and (3) that life is on hold until you get married – since we should wait and see what God has around the corner before we make any major decisions.

But, Christmas has reminded me that waiting can be good. You see as a kid we waited all through the Christmas season to open the gifts under the tree. We waited with great anticipation and expectation for what the tearing away of cartoon character paper would reveal. We couldn’t stand to not know what those gifts were. What did mom and dad get me? Finally the morning came that we’d been waiting for all month long. There was excitement as we saw the hoped for toy or doll, but part of the joy of Christmas morning was not in actually getting the gift but it was the anticipation of receiving the gift that had us so excited that we couldn’t sleep. In other words there is a joy and an excitement that comes in the waiting, in the longing, in the desiring of the good gifts that the Lord will bestow on His children.

Christmas, in the words of Charles Wesley’s hymn, meant the coming of the long expected Jesus. That waiting was full of hope for the promised Messiah who would save His people. Christmas meant the end of 400 years of silence. That waiting was full of expectation – when will God speak to us and how? Christmas, for Mary, meant that 9 months of pregnancy and a night of labor had come to an end. That waiting was full of anticipation for what this baby would mean to this small family and to a world in need of a Savior. Christmas is surrounded by waiting.  

The difference is that this waiting implies something good. I like that. Anticipating, expecting, hoping are words full of life. I want to expect good things to come into my life – people, experiences, the long sought after perfect cup of hot chocolate. I want to be hopeful for the future – future travel, future jobs, future shopping! I want to live anticipating what incredible thing God will do next in my life. Waiting isn’t a bad word; at least not when it’s filled with hope. I think the waiting is part of the gift and it’s the waiting that will make me cherish and appreciate the actual gift once received that much more.

I don’t like waiting, but I do like hoping! The best is yet to come!

There’s more to be said on this…..but you’ll have to wait for part 2!