Waiting Is Tough!

“Why doesn’t the Almighty bring the wicked to judgment?
Why must the godly wait for him in vain?" Job 24:1

Job certainly was getting tired of waiting for God to show up. He ranted and raved for the whole chapter about how gloomy and doom-filled the world around him was. I think that sometimes we end up doing the exact same thing. We wait and wait and wait, and try so hard to be patient, but before we know it, we're tired of waiting, and our frustration level is soaring. I don't know about anyone else, but when I get frustrated I get irritable and annoyed. I tend to get snappish and unpleasant to those around me. Really, it's ultimately a lesson in patience. How do we handle learning patience? I don't know anyone who handles it well.

I am also one who frequently finds themselves wrapped up in a sense of urgency. I always feel like things should have been done yesterday. I was a great retail manager because of that one thing, as long as I felt there was always something that needed to be done, I worked very hard like a busy bee. And yet...

As I'm sitting here writing this, a thought simply came to me, that I can do the hard work while I wait. See, this morning I was thinking about our small group. This fall we're going into uncharted territory with our group time. It's important, and it's something that God has told both Andy and I that we need to do, and we're very excited to get to it. Yet we also know without a doubt that we are to wait until fall to start our new exploration. That's a long time away! More than once I've wished that we could just jump right in and get rolling. Except that as it turns out, there is preparation to be done first. Lots of preparation. We have a whole lot of praying to do to prepare every one's heart to receive what they are going to receive. We have spirits of contention and confusion to pray out and block from our home. We have people to talk to to and assure them that they will indeed be welcome in our home. And we have oh, so much to learn. We need to decide the best way our group is going to benefit from this, and before, as small group leaders, it was easy to follow a study guide or a chapter in the Bible. But this...this is a whole new world for us. All of the sudden we are going to be responsible for introducing a group of people to a whole new side of God that they hadn't perhaps experienced before. And while it's so exciting- so exciting, we also need to pray that we are taking the right steps at the right time.

So we will wait. Maybe not quite with the annoyance that Job uttered aloud, and while we can look forward to the time to come, we also can turn our eyes to Him and do our preparations according to His purpose and His timing.