The Waiting Game
We All Play It. But Why? And For What Purpose?
Some of my recent circumstances have prompted me to reflect on one of the most easily-ignored and easily-forgotten realities of life. As soon as I recognize it, however, I am forced to see it everywhere. It keeps re-appearing in the Bible, an indeed, is part of the fabric of the Bible.
What is it? Waiting.
By now, your mind, even if you couldn’t do so exhaustively, will have already identified a constellation of exhortations and promises which the Bible presents to us, all reflecting the nature of life which is embedded in time; where one thing follows another, and events unfold before us. Consider these:
Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord (Psalm 28:14)
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him (Psalm 37:7)
Wait for the Lord and keep his way (Psalm 37:34)
But those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength; they will mount up on wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint (Isaiah 40:31)
But a further moment in reflection invites us to see, not just these exhortations and promises, but people whose calling from God creates from their life a story with a beginning, a crisis, and a resolution. The fact that Scripture itself records an unfolding story embedded in history demands that we notice the “waiting” which goes hand in hand with the events in the Bible we witness and the people we discover.
From the moment of the Fall of humankind, the reader of Genesis in informed that the ruin, guilt, and shame unleashed by sin will be righted by an offspring of Eve. From that moment, we are all waiting for the time when the serpent’s head will be crushed.
Abraham heard the call of God offer a promise that God would make him a great nation. But he spent years and decades waiting for the appearance of just one child. And he possessed none of the lands promised him except for one burial plot.
The book of Genesis introduces us to Joseph, the favorite son of the patriarch Jacob. Resented by his brothers, he is sold to traders, and find himself in Egypt. There he is unjustly jailed, and is forced to endure delays in receiving the attention and recognition he deserved.
Moses had dreams of improving the lot of the Hebrews in Egypt, but his impulsive violence against an Egyptian guard forced him into exile, herding animals in a far-off land. Even when he returns to Egypt at God’s command and commissioning, he is forced to wait as Pharaoah plays cat and mouse with God’s judgments. Not until all God’s judgments have taken their course will Israel be set free.
The early chapters of Isaiah record the prophet’s calling from God to speak to Judah as a prophet. In that capacity Isaiah is sent to King Ahaz of Judah, who faced a threat by a small coalition of tribes intent on conquering Judah. Isaiah knew that Ahaz’ plan for defense was to form an alliance with Egypt. So what was the Lord’s message to Ahaz?
Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering of firebrands, at the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria and the son of Remaliah…It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass…and within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered from being a people…the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted.
Unfortunately for Ahaz, fear was greater than faith; waiting was what he was not prepared to do.
There Are Varieties of Waiting, But the Same God Who Works in All
Waiting is a problematic experience in our present time. We have long had a culture which has embraced a different take on life, one which avoids the need for waiting. We could express that outlook with the word, “Instant.” As long ago as 1980, Eugene Peterson chose to exposit the Psalms of Ascent using the following subtitle: “Discipleship in an Instant Society.”
An instant society is one in which waiting is an abomination, and hell is the return-line at Walmart on the day after Christmas. We assume that waiting is the path to resignation and despair. Waiting is doing nothing, and anything is better than nothing.
But nothing could be further from the truth. And the reason is this: There is no exhortation to “wait” which does not also announce that we are waiting in partnership with the covenant-making and covenant-keeping God, who says of himself, “Immanuel” - God with us.
In our partnership with God we are the recipients of a series of divine promises which undergird our destiny as God’s people - “a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10). Embeded this knowledge is a consciousness that “the fullness of time” has not yet appeared. Though the salvation of God’s people has begun and its future is secure, we will suffer various trials (James 1:2), tribulations (Acts 14:22), and oppostion which will lead to suffering (Philippians 1:29-30).
What suffering entails is an engagement with life in the power of the gospel. It is, by turns, an ordinary life (1 Timothy 2:2; 1 Thessalonians 4:10-11); yet is displays extraordinary deference in the face of suspicion, extraordinary endurance under trial, and extraordinary boldness in its witness. This, and nothing less, is what it means to wait on the Lord. It is not a form of time-out. It is not a rain-delay. It is not confinement to a penalty box. Instead, it’s a partnership which invites us to apply the eyes of faith to behold our Greater Partner.
What’s Happening When Nothing Seems to Be Happening?
The Bible warns us against trying to read God’s secret purposes off the events which surround us. This was the undoing of Job’s friends. This is the perennial downfall of the proud (Proverbs 16:18). This is the destiny of those who claim the world for themselves, at the cost of people whom they manipulaet and abuse.
But who reveals Job’s friends as fake? Who brings the downfall of the proud? Who causes the wicked to fall into their own snare? The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings all agree: It is the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. Conversely, who stands as protector of the orphan and widow, the meek, the poor, and the oppressed? Their help is in the name of the Lord, Maker of heaven and earth.
To paraphrase Paul’s description of grace gifts given to the church (1 Corinthians 12), we can say with confidence: There are varieties of Waiting, but the same God who works in all. This God often remains hidden from our eyes, for his sovereign actions engage places of the heart we can’t access, and a whole host of events and circumstances we are not privy to.
Occasionally in Scripture, the curtains which hide all this are pulled back, and we discover a cosmic backdrop in which our most desperate circumstances are occuring. Daniel (Chapter 9), out of a sense of panic that the nation in exile Israel is not spiritually prepared for a return to their land, engages in prayers of desperation, yet marked by hope in what only God can do. In answer to Daniel’s prayers, the angel Gabriel appears, having been sent the moment Daniel began to pray. Gabriel reveals the depth of the conflict behind the story of Israel’s exile and promised return. There are powerful forces at work, the likes of which Daniel cannot imagine; yet Daniel and his people are neither lost nor cast off.
The book of Revelation performs a similar function at the conclusion of the biblical narrative. The saints, from the time of Christ’s resurrection and ascension, will suffer at the hands of forces without hands - powers, authorities, principalities, and forces of darkness. But they shall stand as those who overcame all adversity and oppostion:
Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down…And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives unto death.
Playing the Waiting Game in Hope of the Set and the Match
Let me show all my cards at this point. I’ve pointed to Waiting in the Bible; I’ve talked about Waiting in the Bible. And I’ve even talked about why “Waiting” is a directive out of step with a culture which seeks impose power to change at the drop of a hat what seems intolerable and inconvenient.
But what, then, is waiting? It’s time to take a stab at it.
Waiting is the God-appointed mans by which we embrace hope.
And as Paul reveals in Romans, this is a hope which won’t end in disappointment. What we hope for subjectively corresponds to a hope objective and certain - “an inheritanc which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. We’re playing a Waiting Game in hope, anticipating the time to come when we will hear from a seat on high, “Game, Set, and Match is yours.”
Wait, I say, on the Lord.