The motor stuttered, jolted, moaned loudly and fell silent again. Words were exchanged in Swahili and the mechanic climbed back inside the open flap on the bus floor. Four hours had passed and we’d only made it five miles outside of the city. I glanced at the timer on my wrist watch- fifty two hours of travel since we had left our hostel room in Siem Reap, and ten hours ahead of us on this bus until we reached our final destination in Tanzania. As I popped a butterscotch candy into my mouth, I tried to remember the last time I had a meal…I think it was that chicken salad in Cambodia three days ago. It was strange how my stomach stopped growling after the first day of travel and had entered into a kind of quiet waiting that mirrored the state of my soul. The last fifty hours were a blur. Hours in line for customs out of Cambodia had melted into hours on a bus to Bangkok which had turned into hours at the airport swirling into hours in a lobby in Tanzania and finally melting into this moment on a broken bus in the African slums. Hours upon hours of waiting.
I used to hate waiting. I thought it was a synonym for wasting time. Every moment stuck in line or caught in traffic stole away from my full, abundant life. I would pull out my iPhone in line just to feel like I was doing something, even if it was just replying to FaceBook messages.
Often we get so wrapped up in where we’re going that we forget how to just wait. It stems from the lie that our worth is in what we do rather who we are.
This year has been full of waiting. Other cultures aren’t bothered by it the way that we are. In those spare hours I automatically search my brain for what I should be doing (its a habit I picked up to survive college). What could I accomplish in this time? I rack my brain, but there is nothing. For the first time since I was a child there is nothing I ought to be doing.
At first I hated it- I felt lost, antsy, confused with what to do with myself and where to find my identity.
But now, after five months, I love it. I smile and settle back into my bus seat perfectly content to wait on the side of the road for hours while they work on the bus. It’s nice to kick up my feet, look out the window at the African desert land and just be. Of course there are things I could be doing- I could edit pictures or write emails. But for now it’s better to not. Thoughts of last month drift into my mind, while hopes and prayers for Africa start to form. As my rights and expectations are laid at the foot of the Cross in surrender, a quiet stillness and serenity rest on my spirit. Slowly but surely God prepares me for the month ahead.
God isn’t bothered by waiting either. He tells us to wait on Him. He operates at His own pace and in His own timing. There is something beautiful birthed in times of waiting. We learn dependence on others and gain patience, joy and thanksgiving. We learn to look around and breathe in the moment.
There is a time to press in and give it your all, but there is also a time to be content in waiting. Living life to its fullest doesn’t mean filling every moment with excessive activity. Sometimes it means being still and knowing that you are loved just as you are. Sometimes it means doing absolutely nothing for days and still feeling good about yourself. Living an abundant life includes waiting, even entire seasons of waiting, and knowing that in them we are exactly where He wants us to be.
