Casandra Martin

I am not very patient. Today I was standing in line at the store waiting for customer service. It didn’t take long for me to check the time and start tapping my toe. We tend to view waiting as a waste. We see it as down time that isn’t being used in the most efficient way. Waiting holds little value in our society because it is deemed unproductive. It doesn’t move us forward on the ladder to success, buy us the newest gadget, or contribute to reaching a higher status. In fact, the longer you have to wait in our society, the more of a nobody the world says you really are.

What if I could view my waiting times differently? What if I could see them as God-given moments to touch the circumstance in which I find myself waiting with His power and grace? When I am standing in line, holding on the phone, waiting for my email to download, standing at the bus stop, or waiting for a friend to arrive, I have two choices. My first, and usual, choice is to view those minutes as delays in getting to where I want to go and what I hope to accomplish. Seeing them this way makes me impatient and irritable. The world needs to run on my schedule. It moves me to the center, allowing me to demand that everything run at my pace.

The second option is to fill those waiting moments with God. I could spend my time in line at the store praying for the people in the line with me, the clerk who is working hard to help us, and the blessings of being able to buy what I need. Waiting time could be watching time – watching for God to move, searching for His fingerprints, or soaking in the beauty He plants all around us. At the bus stop, I can pray for my children. In the parking lot, I can ask God to be in the middle of the conversation I will have with my friend. Waiting times can be times of blessing rather than a burden or a bother, if we infuse them with Him.

My Jesus Resolution today is to wait with joy. I will see every line I wait in today as a place to meet God. I will ask the Lord how I can be a blessing to those waiting with me. I resolve to wait with expectation, anticipating that God will cause those minutes to overflow with His presence. I am going to use these waiting minutes to make my heart tender to the truth that God continually waits for me.