Wait

Like hope and love, wait is a four-letter word. And it is equally hard to learn.

When we are young, we find it heard to wait for a special event such as a birthday or Christmas. As we grow older, we are challenged to wait for success in school--that we need to build on successive grades even as we are anxious to graduate and be out, working. Working, we have to wait for promotion, and eventually, to retirement. But we don't like to wait. We want to have what we want when we want it. Impatience marks us.

Then comes the really difficult waiting: someone we love and want to marry but we have to wait to be engaged, then through engagement to wedding day, then after that to the actual marriage. And we wait for children to come, and if they don't, we wait to find out why.

As we age, we wait for the results of medical tests. As others age, we wait for the call informing us of the state of their health. And then there is the most dreadful wait of all: for death.

We are not patient. We want what we want when we want it, except declining health and eventual death--those we would just as soon put off as long as possible.

I remember the month we expected my husband's grandmother to die about 13 years ago; it was the longest month as we waited for "the phone call," but it wasn't God's will for her to die then. I remember other months of anxiety, too.

I have learned over the years to take my strength from the Word of the Lord, and especially from the Psalms..

Psalm 25:5: "Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; for You I wait all the day."

Psalm 33:20: "Our soul waits for the LORD; He is our help and shield."

Psalm 37:7, 9: "Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of  the man who carries out evil schemes....For evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for the LORD, they will inherit the land."

Psalm 37:34: "Wait for the LORD and keep His way, and He will exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, you will see it."

Psalm 39:7:  "And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You."

Psalm 40:1: "I waited patiently for the LORD; and He inclined to me and heard my cry."

Psalm 62:1, 5: "My soul waits in silence for God only; from Him is my salvation....My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him."

Psalm 119:74: May those who fear You see me and be glad; because I wait for Your word."

Psalm 119:114: "You are my hiding place and my shield; I wait for Your word."

Psalm 130:5: "I wait for the LORD, my soul does wait, and in His word do I hope."

But I have learned to take this as my strength whenever I have to wait:

     "I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of
     the LORD is the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong and let your
     heart take courage; yes, wait for the LORD" (Psalm 27:13-14); and this from
     Isaiah 40: "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the
     LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired;
     His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who
     lacks might He increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, and
     vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait on the LORD will gain
     new strength, they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not
     get tired, they will walk and not become weary" (verses 28-31).