The Waiting RoomSample

Every waiting room ends - eventually.

Eventually, the surgeon exited the operating room and found me in the waiting room. He said, "Everything's okay. The surgery was a success."

I was so excited! My time in the waiting room was over! But the doctor didn't stop talking. "However, the next 48 hours are critical. Because you can have a setback, you're not out of the woods. If you can make it through the next 48 hours, there's an 80 percent chance your wife will carry these twins to 32 weeks."

I walked out of one waiting room and straight into another. As intense as those first few days were, they were nothing compared to the following weeks. I wish I had prepared differently for what was on the other side of the exit to my waiting room.

This has probably happened to you, too. You thought you were done waiting, only to begin waiting again. When this happens, you become vulnerable to another temptation - looking for alternatives.

In Jesus's day, as the people were waiting for the Messiah to come, they stopped looking to God for their respite and refuge. The focus of the people of Israel shifted away from the temple, where they would go to worship and make sacrifices, to the synagogue, where leaders taught the law.

How long have you been following Jesus? Perhaps it's been a while, and you know the Bible back to front, but do you know the One this book is about? Like the religious leaders Jesus encountered, have you settled for knowledge of the Bible rather than an intimate relationship with Jesus?

As a pastor, I've sat with people who asked me, "Why is this bad stuff happening to me?! I pray, read my Bible, give money to the church, and I'm there every Sunday."

In response, I ask them if they think God should bless them because they do all of those things. Are they doing all those things to know and grow closer to God, or are they doing those things to get something from God?

This was the challenge of God's people after they'd been freed from Egypt. In Exodus 32, when the Israelites saw that Moses was delayed coming down from the mountain where he was talking with God, they made a terrible alternative plan. They gathered around his brother Aaron and asked Aaron to make them an idol.

They had just been brought out of Egypt by God - delivered out of hundreds of years of slavery. They had left their waiting room. They couldn't wait a few days when they entered another waiting room. Like the people in Exodus 32, we're often more vulnerable than we realize and frequently look for an alternative to God.

Tim Keller defined an idol as "anything you turn to and say - 'save me.'"

When you're waiting, who or what do you look towards to save you?

Is it your skills or talents? Is it your money or relationships? Is it your influence or power? Is it shopping, drinking, clothes, or social media? When you're uncomfortable in the waiting room, whatever you turn to to sustain and save you is your idol.

I encourage you to think about this question before you start the next day of the plan. If you can learn to depend on God for salvation rather than looking to an idol to save you, you will be prepared no matter how long this waiting room lasts or what lies on the other side of that finally opening door!