Category: waiting

When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life.” And the disciples were filled with grief. Matthew 17:22-23

Every day as the sun goes down, as daylight fades into darkness, as time is ascribed a new unique number, we experience an end. In the regularity of this finality, we may have lost a sense of reflection, mourning, or celebration commemorating the passing of what is finished. The monotony of this end followed by a beginning in the split second of midnight, doesn’t leave much space for us to experience the in-between, to feel the vacuum of nothingness, the void of consuming silence, the emptiness of waiting. There is no gap to wonder about all that will not or might yet be. 

In contrast is an end for which there is a noticeable interval before the realization of a start. Here we find ourselves left wordless in this awkward interlude of a sabbath rest. A Holy Saturday that will not play out as it could, leaving us to find comfort as the masses would, convinced we will never again feel as we should, after losing the only one we knew who was good. A day to wallow in the darkness of death, secured by the seal of a stone, and guarded from the burglary of a grave. A day to wrestle with the foolishness of faith and a senseless foretelling buried deep within.

After a long time the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery, and cried out. Out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God. Exodus 2:23

Time – it is impossible to capture it, pin it down, hold it in a word. So much time passes, and so few words to express its essence as it elapses. Only glimpses, fleeting moments that reveal a hint of the gravity of each second. During this interval, Moses named his son, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.” 40 years in Egypt, 40 years in Midian, and “after a long time…” the gap is abruptly broken by an event, slowing down the space between the period and next capital letter.

This is how it is reading God’s word. So much seems to have been left out, and yet for some reason, I assume the thoughts recorded are the ones I most need to hear. But I’m still left longing for a description of the waiting, looking for insight in the pause, searching for guidance through the void to keep my imagination from running wild in the blankness of the middle where it’s easy to get lost. 

I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” Lamentations 3:24

Waiting is a verb – the action of inaction. It is a time to ponder, contemplate, reflect. A curing process that both heals and cements. While I truly desire God’s timescale – living out each moment at the pace of his timestep seems longer than my heart can endure. And as the days turn into weeks that roll into months and revolve into years, I can only believe that capturing the fine detail of this trajectory is preferable to a coarse-grained path.

There is comfort in seeing the big picture, learning general principles, discovering fundamental quantities, but there is a richness found between the lines. A complexity revealed as you experience a thousand shades of grey in each unknown moment that passes. A beauty uncovered as you fixate on each element necessary to create the texture, patterns and form expressing movement in stillness. An understanding known only after you begin to count each passing second that will precisely sum up the end.