Waiting feels like such a waste of time. We’re not very good at it.
But for God’s people, a lot of waiting goes on. Simeon was “waiting for the consolation of Israel” – the revelation of God’s Messiah and his salvation of Israel and the Gentiles – before he died (Luke 2:25-26). Alongside Simeon at the temple was Anna, an elderly widowed prophet. At least eighty-four years old, Anna was waiting for the redemption of God’s people through his Messiah (Luke 2:38).
Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Jewish Council who had opposed the Jews’ clamour for the execution of Jesus, was waiting for God’s kingdom to come (Luke 23:51). Theirs was not a lethargic, resentful “doing time”; but a faithful, patient recognition that God would act to save and judge in his perfect time.
When the apostle Paul was accused in Thessalonica of proclaiming another king, and a riot ensued, he escaped under cover of darkness. He couldn’t stay with his beloved, newly planted church, so he continued pastoring them from a distance – by letter.
In his first letter to them he recalled their turning from idols to serve the living and true God. He commended the church as they “waited for his Son from heaven – Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath” (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10). Paul, pastoring his churches from an eschatological perspective. Paul, encouraging these new Christians to serve God as they waited for the day of judgement and salvation. Waiting is a worthy response to God’s mercy and promises.
“Waiting is a worthy response to God’s mercy and promises.”
Waiting has gone out of vogue – at least for many Westerners. We don’t see it as an activity, but as an intrusion, an irritant, or even a saboteur in our relentlessly busy lives. We’re poor at waiting: worse than our parents, and much worse than our grandparents! We resent it and rail against it; even hate it.
Sometimes we go to great lengths to avoid it. If we find ourselves forced to wait for more than a few minutes, we must find some trivia to scroll through, or, bereft of a phone, then at least something to read. If we choose the wrong supermarket queue and end up waiting, we get edgy and annoyed. We must fill the time, because surely if we are waiting, we must be missing out on something else.
Commuting is a waste of time. A delay in traffic or on a slow train makes us agitated, even if we don’t have an appointment to keep. As time-bound Westerners it is difficult when we enter new cultures to adapt to societies that minimise the importance of time and regard waiting as a normal and enjoyable aspect of life.
As clever, efficient modern people we have a right to travel, eat, study, marry, conceive children, have timely medical care, own property and fulfil our desires without waiting. Don’t we? Some even champion their newly permitted choice to die when it suits – without waiting.
Delayed gratification is an unpopular concept; it’s gone out of fashion. Let’s face it, often when we don’t like waiting it’s because we’re simply impatient.
“Let’s face it: often when we don’t like waiting it’s because we’re simply impatient.”
In the 1920s, the early days of SMBC, a young woman called Mabel Green studied part-time to prepare herself for long-term cross-cultural missionary work. During her studies she met Fred Roberts, a fellow student. Shortly before Fred left Australia with two other SMBC graduates, for pioneering gospel work on the Amazon mission field in Brazil with WEC, Mabel and Fred became engaged. They knew it would be a long wait until their wedding.
And it was. It was four years, until Mabel, by then accepted in her own right as a WEC missionary, arrived in Brazil. She had put those four long years of expectant waiting to excellent use: working to raise her necessary financial resources; business college training; a short course in nursing and midwifery; volunteering with the Salvation Army and the Band of Hope ministry to underprivileged Sydney children; ministry to youth through the Christian Endeavour movement; and finally, WEC mission orientation.
Underneath all these things, Mabel intentionally utilised her time to establish deep habits of prayer, Bible study, personal holiness, and compassionate care for needy people. She learnt Portuguese to enable herself to bring physical care and the gospel of hope to the oppressed, marginalised and cruelly mistreated women of Amazonian Indian tribes.
After four testing years apart, Mabel and Fred were joyfully reunited in Brazil and married in May, 1929. They proceeded to their mission station by river steamer, then a gruelling 17-day canoe trip through the jungle of the Amazonian Basin. The well-equipped Mabel took up her missionary role, serving her Lord Jesus with love and delight. Six months later, unable to be transported to medical care, she died of multiple infections.
