The Waiting RoomSample

Can you imagine waiting for something your grandparents and their grandparents were waiting for?

That's what the people did in the centuries before Jesus was born. Like us, they were tempted to believe God wasn't working. In a waiting room, you can wonder, "Is God doing anything at all?!"

When the waiting lasts longer than is comfortable or preferred, you will be tempted to believe that God isn't working and take matters into your own hands.

While you wait on God, you go through feelings of fear, doubt, worry, insecurity, a desire for control, anger, and betrayal.

Those intense feelings are often the result of perceiving that God is late. When I think about this, I'm reminded of how the apostle Paul describes Jesus's arrival. In Galatians chapter four, Paul wrote, "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son."

What on earth does "the fullness of time" mean?! One thing it means is that God views time differently than we do. God's calendar and watch are set to a different rhythm than ours. While we measure time by hours, minutes, days, weeks, months, and years, God views time radically differently.

The people of Israel living in those 400 years thought God was late in sending the Messiah. But according to Paul, that Messiah came when the fullness of time had come. Isaiah states that God's ways and timing are different from ours.

You can nod at Isaiah's words, but embracing God's timing is another thing when you're in the waiting room. When I'm in the waiting room and discover that God's timing differs from mine, my first response is anger and discouragement. "How long am I going to have to wait?!"

When I consider Jesus' birth in "the fullness of time," I realize that God created the ideal environment for His son to come to save the world and for the Gospel to explode across the globe.

In the 400 years between Malachi and Matthew, Greek became the single language spoken worldwide. The Romans created the Pax Romana - 200 years of relative peace across the empire. The Romans also developed a road system that the world had never seen. A language, a path, and peace all happened, allowing the message of Jesus to be taken to the ends of the earth.

While you're waiting, God is working. You might not be able to see it looking ahead or even in the moment. But looking back, you may be shocked to see how what happened while you were waiting was preparation for how God would one day move.

On the following day of this plan, I will share what you can do when you're impatient. It's something I wish I had done when I was in the waiting room during my wife's surgery.