Why is Waiting So Hard to Do?

Awaiting those things long desired can seem an unending ache. The What-To-Do in the waiting patiently can bring new meaning to our days.

Another Friday rolls around and I hold my breath each time I check my inbox for awaited news.

Nothing is there.

Disappointment sets in hard.

Yet another Friday with no word from our adoption agency. No glad tidings of new orphans being posted on a shared list, ready and waiting to be matched with eager parents. No hope this month of seeing our little one’s face for the first time.

Perhaps next month.

Or the month after…

Yet these delays have been that never-going-anywhere revolving door for years now…

And, delighted as we are the thought of making it through the next step, how long will it be before China opens its borders to foreign travel and the bottleneck of consulate appointments uncorks itself?

Oh, the aching heart in the waiting…

What We Await

Course of our lifetime, be it lengthy or shortened, there will be numerous opportunities for waiting. These moments start as early as infancy – the baby wails for her milk, the toddler howls at having to delay his anticipated toy pleasure- and carry on to our elder age.  

In the intervals of life, we’ll find ourselves awaiting such things as:

~ Answers… we may have a question that needs the time to unfold to its end result, we may have asked of the Lord, and must wait on His response.

~ The next season… seasons of life come and go, bringing particularly unpleasant parts of a specific period. If we’re clutching at sleep and sanity amidst the throngs of young ones, those can be trying times. We may find ourselves yearning for the interim to pass.

~ An anticipated event… for us, this would be our long-awaited addition to our family mentioned above, currently being pursued through international adoption. Prior to the dawning of all the paperwork, appointments, and prayers destined to lead us to sweet little one, we spent a few years as foster parents, nurturing the ones abandoned and neglected in our own community. Hearts aching to rescue one and sweep them into our family permanently, God didn’t open the door to such a path. The waiting has now turned to year upon year as we still long to love and protect one who can be with us for good, moving our focus from fostering to adopting. 

~ The passage of suffering… such a hard place to be. I experienced much personal suffering beginning back in childhood and spanning decades, I understand intimately the pangs of being in such trial and for an extended period. My seemingly never-ending (at the time) interval of chronic pain in my adulthood also served to temper and push the patience in me. Though there’s much beauty derived in the pain and a multitude of ways in which we learn and grow, the acute anguish we undergo sometimes feels more than we can bear.

Sometimes we’re lingering years in the waiting room of life. It’s no wonder we’re gritting our teeth and fretting about as time ticks on in the seam of difficulty.

Waiting Amidst a Fast Food Culture

What a fast food society we’ve become.

Not so much that everyone is out and about constantly grabbing fast food on the go (although that is the reality we live in now), but just how quick and easy such things have become.

And not just food, but anything we could ever want.

Viewing the ways and whens of how we became this way, children now are growing up in a world where waiting is an unacceptable notion of living. They don’t remember the eras of

…mail order catalogs

…enticing offers on cereal boxes requiring a postage stamp and 4-6 weeks before delivery

…even having a delectable book to devour while waiting for a sibling to finish their piano lesson.

Our low and slow society has morphed high-tech and digital in matter of twenty years.

Latest and greatest apps are vying for our attention and occupying our toddlers in waiting rooms, up-to-date news and research is available at the touch of a button, we can enjoy the convenience of a virtual appointments and virtual meetings any day or hour of the week.

Asked to wait an extra week for delivery?

Oh, the injustice.

Truly, pinnacle of immediate gratification is here.

As all these changes truly change us, not always for the better, our inherent nature has not changed since the Fall of man described in Genesis 2. As the media world around us screams of pleasures NOW, accordingly, our personal being has more working against it.

We’re not inherently patient creatures, such must be grown in us through the daily walk of sanctification, constant undertaking in the journey, a pathway without end until our end here.

We’re talking potential years. Decades, even.

For the extra week on delivering that patio set, this is the real stuff here. Things true waiting is made of.

And, if we’re honest with ourselves, we can say the waiting is hard simply because the trust is hard.

Perhaps we could even say we feel robbed of something that should be ours, and ours now.

In its raw form, impatience is the equivalence of unbelief.

Without the full assurance in our hearts of a good God who works the good in the waiting, what hope do we have the waiting is even worth it?

Waiting is so hard because we’re not patient creatures by nature. We’re constantly battling our flesh, products of the Fall, and patience must be cultivated in us. In addition, our fast food, immediate gratification society, tells us that we shouldn’t have to wait. Just like we can have an Egg McMuffin minutes after speaking a few key words and an entire patio set at our doorstep two days after clicking send, we’ve become used to getting what we want now.

Common Pitfalls in the Waiting

Those timeframes that drag on longer than we would ever desire can lead to the outpouring of a thousand unpleasant emotions.

NOT FUN.

Cropping the top of the list would be the simple element of added worry to our existence.

Why is this taking so long?

Did I make the wrong choice?

Will this never end?

The anxiety brought forth is kin and next door neighbor to such other traps as Regret and Second-guessing.

Surely, He doesn’t have THIS for me.

Why would He call me to sit in such suffering for such length?

I should never have done so and so xyz you-fill-it-in…let me think of twenty other things that COULD HAVE been that actual right path and consider a different direction.

Not that considering and intentional prayer for direction and reflecting upon our past choices can be bad – not at all.

Yet there comes a time when we took the right steps, treading upon the path He called us to, and our simple response now should be to just
“be still and know that I am God.”
-Psalm 46:10

The What To Do in the Waiting

Take a Breath

Oh beloved, that rest in the waiting…do you see the picture?

Precious child, knowing full well the Daddy she has loves her and takes care of her every need, simply bows her head at Your will be done.

That is a thing far precious to the Lord, the simple childlike faith that beckons entrance to what Heaven is all about. 

Loveliness of scripture paints an honest, intimate relationship with God through Jesus, chock full of waiting on and trusting in our Maker:

“I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry.”
– Psalm 40:1

“The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” 
– Lamentations 3:25

Quite the far cry from how society attempts to program us.

Seek for Contentment

Paul, steadfast shepherd to the nations, cares for the people in his delivery of the Gospel, yet it’s not without cost. Though his sufferings run the gamut of :

beatings
imprisonments
stoning
being shipwrecked
lacking food or drink or sleep
(2 Corinthians 11:23-29)

he is not without the contentment in every circumstance.

A contentment that even rejoices always (Philippians 4:4).

Just like Paul, our life is not a series of frog hopping from lily pad of leisure to lily pad of delight.

Rather, we press on toward the goal for the prize of
the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14).

It is our lot to trust the Lord where we’re at, dare I even say, enjoy the season in which we find ourselves.

Find that contentment in every circumstance – it only comes from Him.

Writing this, I also understand the extreme difficulty this will be to some, as I too keenly remember my own exquisite emotional, mental and physical suffering –

yet despite whatever eons of waiting or even suffering we must endure in life, such is not comparable to the blessings we’ve obtained from Radiant Savior, Gracious God who has shown us infinite mercy.

The gifts of life that can never, no never, be taken from us.

Savor What You Can

On a more practical level and as an example…

💕 if you’re in that season of complete exhaustion from the littles clinging at your ankles or interrupting your every precious moment of rest, can you treasure those needy cuddle times through bleary eyes of sleeplessness? If you’re new parents, be aware of the eye-opening truth – they grow SO fast!

💕 if you’re overcome with the hard toil of caring for elderly parents, can you prize the moments you have now with them, remembering how time is short?

💕 if that anticipated event is somewhere on your desired horizon, can you take the extra moments now to press into the Lord and learn from Him in the season of want and wait?

Distract

Another tidbit on waiting in the hard seasons is The Art of Distraction. The great educator Charlotte Mason promoted this in something she called, “changing your thoughts.” She was referring to assisting a child with a tired, weak will, by distracting their minds – but it has practical applications throughout the entire course of life.

You can easily see this in full play in the life of a child…

Little legs stumble and bumble as they run for glee towards you, feet trip and knees buckle, down they tumble, hard. Tears flow readily in the plight of the superficial scrape and, moments later, if done right –

the artful parents has succeeded in distracting the child towards an area of interest or delight.

Perhaps tender mommy arms wrap around while she asks little one about the book they were giggling about that morning…or to pick up their favorite ball across the room.

Suddenly, the pain that was so immensely important is on the back burner and their attention is fed in another manner.

Not only does this work for us in our youth, but it can be glorious measure of tactic in our adult lives.

Push aside the picture of sitting around, pining for whatever isn’t coming (at least not yet), and occupy your time and mind with worthwhile things. Take the season to build into your kids, the Lord, scripture, a new fun project, a new relationship – whatever! The time will pass in the busyness and be more the enjoyable for you.

Not for a moment believe these practices aren’t something you can do.

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness…
– 2 Peter 1:3

Embrace the

quiet rest
contentment found
pieces of joy
moments of distraction

in the waiting.