When the answer is wait.

(Written as a devotional for She Reads Truth, #SheSharesTruth Challenge)

Can I be honest?

People throw it around a lot. That phrase.

“Wait on the Lord.”

After the breakups, people said it.

When I graduated college and didn’t know what to do with my life, people said it.

When I wanted that thing to happen that wasn’t happening, I knew I was supposed to, yep, do it.

So then I’d say I was surrendering my desires and my plans, all the while, hanging onto those desires and plans.

I’d say I was “waiting on the Lord,” all the while waiting on that thing I wanted.

A marriage, a job, a car, a house, an answer, a whatever….I waited on all those things quite effectively under the guise of “waiting on the Lord.”

I carried out the first part of Psalm 130 perfectly: “Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice.”

Night after night I did that.

But I completely missed the second part. “But there is forgiveness with You, that you may be feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, and in His word do I hope. My soul waits for the Lord.”

Because learning to fear Him is part of learning to wait on Him.

Because pride is the opposite of humbly fearing.

And pride causes us to wait on our desires.

So He breaks our pride.

By revealing the sin that devastates our relationship with Him. Driving us to our knees, reorienting our cries to and for the only one who’s worth crying out to and for. 

To the only one who’s worth waiting for. 

But then.

He reminds us that He forgives that devastating sin. And our worship of this fleeting life is utterly shattered. And is replaced by awe, reverence, and fear of Him.

And we see His abundant love.

So we start fearing Him and stop fearing what we want. So we praise Him and stop praising what we want. So we see the futility of what we want against the backdrop of His worth.

And in that, we see the glory. His glory.

When the things of earth grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.

And then.

The waiting is redefined: “It’s the bowed-head, soul prostate refusal to take the situation into our own hands. We’ve trusted, we’ve delighted, we’ve acted, and now we say “Let the Lord do what seems good to him!” (2 Sam. 10:12). And then we are still before him. We are waiting, after all. Waiting. Holding on.” (Desiringgod.org)

Not for what pleases us, but for what pleases Him. 

And that’s how we learn to wait for Him.

And our hearts become clay in the potter’s hands. Our hearts bow. Our hearts want what he wants, whatever that might mean, because our hearts long only to see Him, to see His glory. Because we are in awe of who He is. Of His worth. Of His love.

And we are doing something. We’re waiting. And we’re hoping in His word. Hoping in Him. Not in the things that will come through Him.

And then there’s the third part of that Psalm:

“O, Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is lovingkindness”

“And with Him is abundant redemption.”

So we hold on. We trust. We wait.

Reveling in the love and forgiveness that abounds.

Because we know.

In the waiting, after the waiting.

There will be lovingkindess. 

And.

There will be redemption. 

Abundant redemption.