He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set
eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from
beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be
happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and
find satisfaction in all their toil—--this is the gift of God. –-- Ecclesiates 3:11-13
(NIV)
Waiting. This seems to be the mode of my life for this
short period of time. It is something
that few of us enjoy. Consider your
experiences at the DMV, or waiting for checkout at the grocery store. Perhaps you can remember a recent time when
you were stuck in traffic. When waiting,
we become like tigers caged in our own minds, convinced that we should be doing
something else. Certainly, we could find
something more productive to do than this.
Waiting feels like falling through the cracks between those times when
"real life" happens.
Many of you know what has brought
this time of waiting in my own life. A
10-centimeter growth was recently found in my right kidney, confirmed by CT and
MRI scans. The specialist, nearly three
weeks ago, told me that this was almost certainly cancer, and that the kidney
needed to come out very soon. Any of us
would interpret "very soon" as, well, very soon. For something like cancer, I would prefer the
"right away" interpretation of "very soon." And so, at least at first, my adrenaline was
cranked up, and I was raring to go. By
all means, let's get this thing out, the sooner the better. But then I found out that the specialist's
definition of "very soon" was September 12--certainly a far cry from
the way I'd define it. At the time of
this writing, I'm still looking at nearly two and a half weeks until the
surgery happens.
During these intervening days,
the caged tiger snarls a great deal. I
am limited from even some of my normal activities, because too much moving
around causes bleeding, and an ever-abiding tiredness that frustrates me to no
end. The "take charge and get
things handled" part of me has his hands tied, as there is really very
little I can do until this surgery gets done.
Don't even get me started about what happens after the surgery is
completed--I'm looking at a couple of weeks of being in bed, and a couple more
weeks after that of doing very little. I
won't even be able to drive for who knows how long!
We think of waiting as nothing
but a nuisance, but God's counsel is for us to learn to see it differently: as
a reminder of important truths. Think
with me a moment. We are aggravated
during times of waiting, because there is nothing that we can do about it. So, what might our Father be trying to teach
us during such times? How about this:
ultimately, God's plans do not depend on what we can accomplish. I will admit this: I think about our church,
during those weeks when I will be laid up, and I'm tempted to fret a
little. I think of our Tuesday evening
Bible studies, the high school Sunday School class that I teach, our Sunday
morning services, and all of the other busy things that happen in the fall season. I wonder how all of this will go,
with me stuck at home in bed.
When that little hint of fretting
rises up, the Holy Spirit gently corrects me.
He reminds me that this church existed for well over a century before I
got here. Generations of Christians have
worshiped the Lord, and been discipled to live for Him, without any involvement
from me whatever. And the Lord can see
to this perfectly well without me, for a month or so, while I am laid up.
Still, these delusions of grandeur keep popping to the surface. We say that we
believe in letting God be in charge, but we keep getting this idea that He
needs a little help from us. Where does
this crazy thought come from, that things won't work out well without our
contribution? I think it's the same
thing that's been following us around since the Garden: our pride. Pride is our most ancient, most tenacious
enemy. It is exceedingly hard to
shake. You might think of it like the
barnacles that encrust the bottom of ships over time. They damage vessels, slowing them down and
making them less effective. One of the
most powerful tools the Lord uses to pry loose pride is a time of forced
waiting, of feeling helpless...useless.
During such times, we thrash about impatiently. We resist the idea of the Lord getting on
with His plans without us. Inevitably,
our striving calms and we begin to accept that our world, our work, and our
relationships are well within His capable hands. Paradoxically, it is when we find rest in our
unimportance that we become truly useful to the Lord. We learn that anything of worth, even when we
are involved, is being done by God, not us.
We discover that, like the Apostle Paul, we have been crucified with
Christ, and that we no longer live, but Christ lives through us. (Galatians
2:20)
When we think we have fallen
through the cracks of "real life," we may also find that we have much
to learn about what that life is really about.
Be honest now: as an adult, where do your thoughts mostly dwell? I'll go first. Rarely do my thoughts center on this moment,
on what is happening right now. Instead,
I think a great deal about what is coming up next. Even as I perform one task, or engage in one
conversation, I find myself casting forward to my next obligation, or where I
need to be and what I need to do tomorrow.
Even though I must still wait over two weeks for this stupid kidney to
come out, my mind wants to picture the time when it's done and I'm fully
recovered. But I'm finding it hard to
envision that time, because I have all this time of waiting--waiting for the
operation and waiting to recover--that gets in my way. A gradual shift is happening in my
thinking. Since I have so much waiting to
do, without any shortcuts to rush it along, I might as well settle down and
wait. Don't let me fool you, I'm not
completely settled yet. I still kick and
fuss a little. But I am noticing that
fewer of my thoughts reach to tomorrows and future weeks that were never
guaranteed to me in the first place. My
adrenaline is pumping less, my blood pressure drops, and I think more about the
current day, the present moment.
Realizing that cancer can be life-threatening (even a slow-growing one
like this), I begin to appreciate more that every day of my life, every chance
to cherish my family, every opportunity to enjoy the fellowship of my church,
is a great gift that ought not to be missed while I stew about what tomorrow
may hold.
And when I dwell less on my
earthly future, I increasingly think about how foolish it is to keep a death
grip on this mortal life. The Bible
teaches us that our life is an insubstantial mist that vanishes in the full
sunlight of eternity. Why, then, do we
invest so much time, effort, and passion into this order of things that will
quickly pass away? It's like throwing
our prize possessions into a bottomless hole--wasted! Each day of our life is exactly like that,
when we do not spend that day investing in things of eternal worth. Do I realize...do you realize...how short is
our time on this fallen world, and how critical it is that we seize each day on
that world to prepare ourselves for life on the new and eternal one? Ecclesiastes 3 reminds us that God has set
eternity in our hearts. There is a
homing beacon in each of our souls, sounding out that we were meant for a
different world. While there is still
time, we must learn to number our days so that we can apply our hearts to the
wise use of each one. We must worry
about the tomorrows less and live more fully in the today that God has gifted
us by His grace. In the final analysis,
absolutely nothing matters except how much you love God today, and how you love
those precious family and friends that He has given you as a sacred trust.
Learning to wait is really the
same thing as learning to dwell: to dwell on the here and the now, to dwell on
the relationships you've been given, and to dwell fully in Christ, each
moment. Have you learned to dwell? Perhaps, if not, the Lord will soon be
teaching you how to wait.
