The Waiting RoomSample

Why?

At one point in their development, this was the favorite question of all three of my kids. Their curiosity was overwhelming and, frankly, annoying at times.

When we reach adulthood, we start asking "why?" again. However, our questions are more likely to be rooted in cynicism, especially in the waiting room.

• "Why should I even try?"
• "Why should I even reach out in faith?"
• "Why should I trust God? "

In Mark 5, we meet a woman who has been waiting for a long time. This woman experienced a discharge of blood for 12 years.

If you bled like this during the first century, you were declared unclean. No one could touch you, and you couldn't touch anyone. This woman was isolated in her misery. She went to people she thought would help her, and they worsened it.

The text says that she spent all she had and was no better, but rather, she grew worse. That's one heck of a waiting room! After 12 years, she's facing a "not yet" that feels like a "not ever. "

Yet, she heard the reports about Jesus. So she found him in the crowd and touched his garment. Immediately, the blood flow dried up, and she felt healed of her disease.

For this woman, the waiting room was over. She chose not to listen to the lie that God wasn't working. She rejected the lie that God was hiding from her. Even in her waiting room, she reached out in faith.

Many people in the Gospels were desperate to see the Messiah come. Consider a woman named Anna and a man named Simeon in Luke 2:25-38. God granted them longer lives to see the Messiah in the flesh, and they faithfully waited for the Lord's timing.

The bleeding woman became desperate for Jesus to heal her when she had exhausted all of the alternatives, and she reached out to Jesus because she knew He was her only hope.

In the days after my hospital waiting room, I got desperate. While those couple of hours around surgery felt long, they were nothing compared to waiting until we reached the 48-hour threshold the doctor mentioned. The months that followed included 18 weeks of bed rest for my wife, including six weeks in the hospital. I experienced a new level of desperation.

I couldn't care for my wife and be a single dad to my two-year-old son. I couldn't be a pastor to hundreds of people and my family. I needed help! I became desperate for God and help from people. I couldn't be self-sufficient anymore.

I would have never asked for that waiting room. If allowed to go through it again, I would say, "No!" But when I think about what happened on the other side of that waiting room, I see a different version of myself. My wife changed, and our marriage changed.

What if what you want the most in this world can only come to life because you went through a waiting room? God does some of His best work while we wait, including preparing to send His Son as the Messiah to save the world. Don't give up, and don't buy into the lies our enemy sends you. Perhaps you must come to the end of your rope to find God waiting there for you, ready to work in you as He never has before today.

I want to continue helping you learn how to wait well. Click here for complimentary access to my Waiting Room Guide, overflowing with tools to help you experience God in a place you never planned to be.