The life-changing beauty of waiting
After twenty-two years, Tom Brady hung up his cleats. In New England, we enjoyed twenty spectacular years of Super Bowl trophies piling up in Foxborough and disdainful eye rolls from the rest of the country. Brady’s ability to play professional football at an MVP level into his mid-40’s boggles the mind. If you’ve followed Brady much, you’ve heard about pliability, avocado ice cream, and the TB12 method. His commitment to maintaining peak physical health has been the secret sauce that allowed him to reach his mid-40’s as one of the top quarterbacks in football. Like a fine wine, he got better with age. You may feel less like a fine wine and more like an old shoe with wear and tear from the continual pounding on the asphalt of life’s trials is your story. But, as Christians, though our bodies waste away, our souls can be renewed with youthful vigor. How does this happen? Not through pliability and avocado ice cream but through something far more spectacular: the life-giving gift of grace of waiting on the Lord.
Isaiah 40:31 is familiar to many Christians. You probably recognize this verse:
“But they who wait for the LORD shall
renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like
eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.”
We like to underline and highlight this verse in our bibles, share it on our social media pages, and drink our morning coffee from mugs adorned with it in cute lettering. But let’s be honest; for many of us, waiting is not glamorous. In fact, it is far more difficult than we would let on. Waiting can bring frustration, anxiety, and despair. For something that doesn’t require much physical exertion, waiting really wears on us.
As we parachute into Isaiah 40, we find that God is speaking words of comfort and promise to His people who had endured the devastation of deportation from their homeland. They were snatched up from Jerusalem and Judea and carried hundreds of miles away to Babylon. Now, after being carried away, God arrived with words of comfort and promises of renewal and hope. God’s people were far from home, but they were not far from grace.
How often do we want to experience the power of God while we make it clear to Him that we will not tolerate the pain of our own Babylonian exile? We want the promises of Isaiah 40:31, but we don’t want the problems and pain that make these promises shine brightly in the dark night of the soul. Isaiah reveals that God grows us not in spite of our inconveniences and hardships as some kind of afterthought; rather, Isaiah calls us to behold God who ordains that our inconveniences and hardships are tools that He, the divine surgeon, uses as He performs surgery on our hearts.
“How often do we want to experience the power of God while we make it clear to Him that we will not tolerate the pain of our own Babylonian exile?”
And that brings us to waiting upon the Lord. Waiting means that answers, resolution, and relief often do not come when we want them. In this day of Amazon Prime, DoorDash, streaming tv shows and movies, and smartphones, waiting is not just counter-cultural; waiting is the twilight zone. Do you realize that waiting is one of God’s most powerful tools for sanctifying His people? The Christian life is a life of waiting. We wait upon God to answer prayers and work in our lives, and we wait for that day when we will behold Him with unveiled faces.
“Do you realize that waiting is one of God’s most powerful tools for sanctifying His people? The Christian life is a life of waiting.”
You probably have things for which you have been praying for years that to this point have been unanswered. You may be in a job or stage of life that is frustrating and feels like a dead end. You may feel as if you are spinning your wheels waiting for a return to normal in the world. Or, you may have been a Christian for a number of years and feel as if you should be further down the road in your faith than you are. Look again at Isaiah 40:31 and meditate on what God promises to those who wait upon Him:
“But they who wait for the LORD shall
renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like
eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.”
The Christian faith is mysterious. For some of us, we start the race running 100 mph, nevertheless the busyness of life slows us down, and eventually we look up and wonder what is happening with our faith. Choosing to wait upon the Lord is how we start to run again. Waiting is trusting. Waiting is believing that God will accomplish His purposes in us—His purposes to magnify His glory through His church and to satisfy us in His love.
“Waiting is trusting. Waiting is believing that God will accomplish His purposes in us—His purposes to magnify His glory through His church and to satisfy us in His love.”
At its best, waiting may seem boring, and at its worst, it may feel anguishing, but God intends for your waiting to be soul-transforming. In our waiting, we are nourished by the One whom we wait on. In our waiting, the promises of God come into clearer focus. In your waiting, meditate upon the magnificent glory of the Gospel. And as you wait with your heart set upon Christ, you will soon find that your soul doesn’t seem so worn out, your strength will be renewed. You will run the race of faith, heart ablaze with the glory of Christ. As you sing hymns of God’s faithfulness with your church family, you are waiting well and helping your brothers and sisters to wait with hope. As you sit under the preaching of God’s Word week-by-week and year-by-year, you are waiting well as God transforms you from one degree of glory to another. Let us wait well, knowing that one day we will no longer wait, but we will see and enjoy Christ and the momentary nature of our waiting will depart and the eternal pleasures of Christ will commence.
Stephen McDonald is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Scituate, MA.
