Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who WAIT FOR THE LORD!
Ps 31:23,24 (NLT,NIV)
The text screeches from my screen. YOUR FLIGHT HAS BEEN CANCELLED. What in the ever-loving world? With only six hours’ notice, we barely have time to abort our two-hour drive airport drive. I’d just read about the wave of cancellations sweeping through the nation and felt relieved we slipped ours in. Now we weren’t.
After half an hour of hits and misses, I rebook us. But unfortunately, we can’t get a flight until the following day. At least I have no pressing plans, unlike the guy who blasts the airline on social media. He totally missed his friend’s wedding.
We half expect another cancellation, but instead, we arrive to a delayed flight. Fingers crossed, we wait. Another delay. And another. A collective sigh of relief issues from all the passengers when we finally lift off—an hour late.
The new flying norm—be ready to wait. Worn slick from being hog-tied, people smell freedom and continue to ramp up their travel as the airlines scramble to accommodate the flood.
“Get to the airport early, be prepared for a lot of hassle, and try to keep your cool, because most people are pretty freakin’ wound up,” Brian Del Monte, president of the Aviation Agency, states. He attributes a string of bad weather and a shortage of staff as part of the problem.
Let’s face facts—we Americans hate to wait. We tap our foot. We drum our fingers. We pace. We moan. We despair. We blast our displeasure in reviews and on social media. In that gray space of inaction, we stew and boil over minor inconveniences. Or we may fester with anxiety in more serious arenas as our minds race down all the unlovely paths of what-ifs.
We find the wait excruciating, from the simple inconvenience of Chick-fil-a lines to life-changing events like a diagnosis or a sickbed vigil. So we cope as best we can, eyes glued to our phones to pass the time on Facebook or other mindless pursuits.
Yet we are instructed to “Wait for the LORD.” So is this act a faith requirement? Does that phrase make your toes curl, your teeth grind, and your heart sink? Maybe therein lies the hardest command in all of scripture.
The fast-food line moves in a flash compared to the long-haul waiting. Where the hours can crawl into days, into weeks, into months, and sometimes into lifetimes. And in those dark hours of waiting, our faith can waver, and our hope dim like the beam of a dying flashlight.
In our prayer, we may or may not blurt out, “Hurry Lord,” but the expectation hovers near.
Joseph exhibited the traits of an immature, boastful seventeen-year-old when sold into slavery. Not until age thirty did God free him to interpret Pharaoh’s dream and catapult him to second in command.
Because we live in a fallen world, we all walk through trials. Joseph’s requirement? To wait through 13 years of unjust accusations and punishment. The favored son—sold to tradesmen, a slave to Potipher, stalked by his owner’s wife, falsely arrested for sexual assault, forgotten in prison. Yet he endures and matures through the long wait— until he soars in as God’s man to save his people.
And don’t forget the Psalmists who railed against God’s silence yet persevered until they found Him again. They repeatedly remind us that through all the mud-slides and trials, God’s steadfast love overshadows all. He sustained the Psalmists, he sustained Joseph, and He sustains us too.
Never fun, waiting often requires courage and tenacity, but can help us gain patience. The wait allows us to slow down. In the waiting, we can also renew our faith one day at a time. And sometimes, in the end, be allowed a glimpse of twenty-twenty hindsight as we soar above and say, like I’m sure Joseph did, “NOW I see LORD.”
Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who WAIT FOR THE LORD!