Quote of the Moment

It's not my ability to wait that's good, it's how I wait that makes my waiting good.

Jonathan English

My dear friend posted this recently on our mutual blog “Where Four or More Are Gathered.” It was written in the context of waiting patiently for marriage, but it has vast and universal applications. It’s an important tenet, this waiting thing.
Of God’s promises, especially the second coming of our Lord, the Scriptures explain, “The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains” (James 5:7 NASB). And Wisdom herself is telling us,

Blessed is the man who listens to me,
Watching daily at my gates,
Waiting at my doorposts.
For he who finds me finds life
And obtains favor from the LORD. (Proverbs 8:34-35)

I often joked in my times of preaching and sharing with my brothers, observing someone weary and overwhelmed, that the word rendered “patience” by most modern translations is often the same word rendered “longsuffering” in the older ones, such as the King James Version. Sometimes it is indeed the case that our waiting is difficult work, whether it be more of a challenge to our attitudes or to our bodies. But it’s not our ability to wait, as Jonathan explains, as much as how we wait. What are we doing as we wait? Are we like the one slave who buried his talent and squandered precious time on earth to do his master’s work? Or are we like the shrewd slaves who made the most of what their master had given them in the time allotted?
I think the both verses quoted above illumine a very important point. The first verse is about a farmer—who could think that the farmer is idle while he awaits the produce? Surely, his time is spent in preparation for the present, the harvest, and even the next year. In the context of Proverbs 8, Wisdom is calling out from her house to all who desire her and blessing from God. When she describes “waiting” are her doorposts, she is not talking about idleness in a particular place, but an activity. We know that we are to seek after her, to shout for her, to come to her banquet and eat. Waiting at the doorposts of Wisdom is actively seeking and living by the fear of the Lord, as the remainder of the Proverbs reveals. So it ought to be with all things for which we wait. We do not wait for the sake of waiting. We wait for the sake of something promised, something hoped for; therefore, our waiting ought not be idle, because what God has promised us will come in His timing, and there is other work to be done in the meantime—this other work is also part of a promise, a vow which we each have personally made to Him, not as requisite to salvation, but out of love and desire to bless His name as a response to the love He already showed us in Christ Jesus.

Thanks for the post, Jonathan. Keep waiting. Keep seeking. Keep praying.

God is good.