When my oldest turned fifteen, we bee-lined it to the DMV to get her learner’s permit. Looking back, we made several mistakes, but even so, it was a needlessly painful situation. The line was about 7,000 people deep in a building that could hold 23. Foolishly, I took all three of my kids…even the four-year old. It wasn’t one of my more lucid moments. All that to say, in the three hours we spent waiting, I moved through all five stages of grief, only instead of ending with resigned acceptance, I landed on a shockingly ugly expression of impatience.

Waiting has a way of acting like a wine press and squeezing out what is really on the inside. When forced to wait for anything, how we respond can surprise even ourselves. Prolonged waiting in extremely uncomfortable conditions often pushes us past the limits of what propriety usually is able to restrain.

The Bible commands a better way. When forced to wait, Scripture tells us to do it with patience.

Read:

Therefore, brothers and sisters, be patient until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth and is patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, because the Lord’s coming is near.
-James 5:7-8

Patience isn’t our default setting. In our raw, unrefined state, we are impatient and demanding. We want what we want when we want it. A hungry baby, for example, is the most impatient creature on the planet. Patience is, therefore, a sign of maturity.

Patience is also a form of humility. It yields to the needs of others. It yields to authority, and, when it comes to the things of God, it confesses that his timing is best and that his way is best. I would venture to say that if Sarah and Abraham could do it all over again, they would choose waiting patiently for the LORD to fulfill all he had promised.

While some personalities are less ruffled by having to wait than others, patience isn’t something we can cultivate on our own. Patience is fruit the Spirit produces in us (Gal. 5). Paul tells us in Romans 5 that patience is formed in us to produce character which produces hope. This makes me think of how blood clots. When a blood vessel is damaged, platelets gather around the damaged area and release a chemical that attracts more platelets. Clotting factors activate fibrin in the blood which form the scab and stops the vessel from bleeding out. What the body ultimately needs for survival is for the bleeding to stop, but that can’t happen until the platelets initially form around the wound. In the same way, hope can’t ultimately be produced except that patience lays the groundwork.

The refrain of the Bible is that God does all things at just the right time. He is never late (even though we sense that he is at times), and he is never early, but in his timing, it is incumbent upon us to wait. We don’t wait because he mistimed anything. We wait as part of his perfect timing, because in the waiting, he’s forming Christ in us and setting the context for us to need him more so he can give us more of himself! Waiting is a divine set up for divine visitation.

The millennia of waiting between the first promise of a savior and the birth of Jesus was a divine set up for His divine visitation.

Patience, dear one. Strengthen your heart. Our Savior is near.

Pray: Lord, you know my distaste for waiting. You see my impatient heart even when I mask it with a calm exterior. I confess that I have demanded my way and my timing more than I care to recount. Lord, bend my will to yours. Help me endure suffering and waiting with patience, so that I will be in possession of proven character and hope.