It's a Waiting Game

They say patience is a virtue, but let’s be honest. Waiting is hard. It’s hard when you anticipate a particular event or outcome. Don’t believe it? Ask any child as they wait for their birthday. Or better yet, for Christmas to arrive. It’s why parents spend years trying to teach their kids how to wait and be patient. But the truth is, at every stage in life, waiting is hard. As we become adults, though we may find excitement over holidays or birthdays, we can usually stand the wait. But what if we are in a difficult season of life? Or we’re waiting on news from the doctor? Or maybe we are just hoping to get to the end of what seems like an endless process and there just doesn’t seem to be one. Are we still patient then? The author of the book of Ecclesiastes understood the difficulty of patience. At the beginning of chapter three, the author writes that there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens (Ecclesiastes 3:1 NIV).

Growing up we heard it this way that there is a time and a place for everything. Or if you’re a fan of the musical group The Byrds: to everything turn, turn, turn. There is a season turn, turn, turn. Throughout time, we are still trying to learn what it means to be patient. But the author continues in his wisdom on how we can find patience and the road to it. He continues saying what do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.  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. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him (Ecclesiates 3:9-14 NIV).

Joyce Meyers once said that Patience is not the ability to wait, but how you act while you’re waiting. And if we are honest with ourselves, we don’t always do it right and we don’t always exhibit patience as it’s meant to be. The truth is, patience and understanding come from God. Satisfaction comes from God. Nothing can be added to what He has put in motion. And the more we know Him. The more we seek Him. The more we will begin to understand what it means to be patient in the circumstance we find ourselves. Whatever situation you may find yourself in, it is but for a season. We can’t fathom what He has done from beginning to end. All we can do is trust that He continues to work out His plan for us. Even in the midst of what may seem like an endless cycle. He’s still there. He’s still moving. And the end of the tunnel for us is just a waiting game. God is still in control.

So the question for us is how are we acting while waiting? Where do you need to exhibit more patience today?