"You Have An Hour Wait From This Point"

Psalm 130  (The Message)

My life’s on the line before God, my Lord,
    waiting and watching till morning,
    waiting and watching till morning.

 O Israel, wait and watch for God—
    with God’s arrival comes love,
    with God’s arrival comes generous redemption.

What a powerful Psalm!  Saying your life is on the line before God.  Waiting for God is your primary space of being. Waiting day and night. Watching day and night for God's arrival... because you know, YOU KNOW that with God's arrival comes love... and not only love, but redemption.  Israel's captivity to sin will be no more.

And in the light of the recent events in the world, sometimes it seems like we are tired of waiting and watching for God.  Tired of waiting and watching for God's arrival.  And yet, I have to wonder how much waiting and watching some of us actually do.  At what point, or in what ways, are we comparing waiting and watching to standing around and complaining?

It's like standing in line at the theme park, waiting to ride the blockbuster, most popular ride.  You are in line to ride Space Mountain or Jungle Cruise and you see a sign that says "You have an hour wait from this point."  Oh. my. god. you think. How on earth can we stand to wait another hour? This is insanity. Why are we here?

And yet, we chose, purposefully, to be in the line. Wait for the ride. Be at the theme park in the middle of summer.  So the wait is ours.  Chosen by us.  Complaining should not be part of this equation, but despite this reality, we do complain.

What other "waits" are we purposefully choosing? What else are we standing in line for?  Are we waiting for God to show up and save us from ourselves?  Are we waiting on the world to change?  

I wonder if we can take the "you have an hour wait from this point" sense of frustration and channel it instead into opportunity.  Can we use our waiting for God to show up as a time to become the hands and feet of Christ in the world?  At times when we just want to 'get on with it,' can we use the time of waiting for change to actually work on changing our own hearts, changing our own ways of reaching out and making a difference?

This is what my thoughts are on waiting for God today.  What are yours?

Email me at peverhart@niwotumc.org or comment below.