The Waiting RoomSample

It feels like yesterday since I sat in a hospital waiting room waiting to hear if the surgery required to save our 18-week-old twins was successful or not.

I felt more out of control than I'd ever felt. It felt like an eternity since they wheeled my wife back into the operating room. Doubt, fear, and a feeling of powerlessness overwhelmed me. I prayed, "God, save my babies."

You might have been in a waiting room like that or even be in one today. One problem with waiting rooms is that we don't wait well.

When asked to describe ourselves, very few would pick the word "patient." And yet, waiting is an inevitable part of our lives. Lewis Smedes famously wrote, "Waiting is our destiny. As creatures who cannot by themselves bring about what they hope for, we wait in the darkness for a flame we cannot light. We wait in fear for a happy ending that we cannot write. We wait for a not yet that feels like a not ever."

Each year, the calendar invites us into a season of waiting. Advent is the season we prepare for and await the celebration of Jesus's birth. It is an important season that we shouldn't rush through. Instead, like those who waited for the birth of the Messiah, we have an opportunity to prepare ourselves to welcome Jesus.

Yet, that preparation is often uncomfortable. Diedrich Bonhoeffer wrote a letter from a prison cell in Nazi Germany in 1943. He said, "A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes - and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent."

In the same way that the people waiting for the Messiah 2,000 years ago could not force His arrival, you probably can't open the door out of your waiting room. If you could open the door, you would just leave. But then you might miss out. After all, God does some of His best work in waiting rooms.

A big part of this plan will be paying attention to what you believe about God and what you're tempted to think about how God is at work. In 2 Corinthians 10, the Apostle Paul taught us that spiritual warfare includes the battle between our ears.

On each day of this plan, we'll examine what God does in the waiting room, including battling the lies we hear while we wait.

Before we wrap up day 1 of this plan, I want you to know one important truth. While you are waiting, God is working. You may not be able to see it or hear it at this moment, but I'm praying that you don't give in to cynicism or despair. God's work isn't always visible. Like a seed planted underground, God's work often happens under the surface where we cannot see it.

On the following day of this plan, we will look at the story of people who waited on God for longer than we have been alive. They have something to teach us in our waiting rooms.