Stop! Push pause. Hold on. How do we make it slow down?
This time thing…it really bugs me. Why is it sometimes life seems to drag on and on and on….and other times it goes by just way too fast?
“’Wait on the Lord’ is a constant refrain in the Psalms, and it is a necessary word, for God often keeps us waiting. He is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not his way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time. When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait on God. When action is needed, light will come.” JI Packer
We are all experiencing it on my Squad right now, this notion of life after the Race. For some, it came a few months ago and we’ve been grappling with how to remain present while having job interviews and school acceptance letters come in. We are doing ministry and enjoying new countries and cultures, but are also really excited for air conditioning, driving, and chik-fil-a waiting for us stateside.
This Race isn’t easy in a lot of ways, but in a lot of ways it can be easier than ‘real life’ back home. I think back to when I was home over a year ago and how long I was sitting there, anticipating the Race and itching to go. And now, the reverse is true and I sometimes find myself daydreaming about a life with the ease of things America brings: fast food, driving myself WHERever I want, WHENever I want, Target, Target, Target. We don’t realize how easy our world is until we’ve experienced another. Or, 11 other. Make that 12 after El Salvador for a week. We don’t realize that doing laundry in a 3rd world country takes forever and that’s not including time for it to dry on the line, if it doesn’t rain. Or what about that lovely bucket shower in which you get out and notice you missed a few streaks of dirt and, in that moment, you realize you haven’t really felt clean since that luke warm shower you had in Guatemala over 2 months ago. You’re hungry and dinner isn’t ready for 4 more hours so you go to the nearest Pulpuria for a snack. You’re options are so few; snickers, weird Honduran chips, or an ice cream (clearly the answer is ice cream, always).
Despite the limits the Race puts on your life, it’s actually an incredible blessing. I went into a grocery store with about 45 different shampoo options this week in Nicaragua (they actually had imported some really great stuff from the States). I freaked. I couldn’t make a decision. So often it’s either Pantene or some local stuff in a language I don’t understand. I make the obvious choice and buy the cheaper one (just be careful it’s not actually hair gel when risking a buck). I circled the aisles 7 times I think and just settled on the Pantene. At the check out they had so many choices of snack; multiple types of M&M’s, snickers, even a granola bar! Rare find. I was overwhelmed. And I realized I’ll be heading home in under a month where choice will be something I freely have ALL the time. And I pictured myself walking into Target, walking around for a few minutes in awe and then imagined I’d probably find myself rocking back and forth in the aisles, chanting, “It’s going to be okay. You can do it, just pick something,” over and over. These different countries have it so easy! It’s been a blessing to be limited in choice. For indecisive people, like me, it makes it quite simple.
And when I think about going home, I realize life will start going by so much faster than it already is! It feels like this past year has flown by, but I’ve been moving slower. How does that make any sense at all? It’s like a time-lapse video; everything is moving at incredible speed, but in the moment it took such a long time. That’s our lives, isn’t it? We try to pause and focus in on certain moments we want to stay caught in forever, but still it keeps going despite our persistence.
There is a trick to it though, and I’m barely learning it. Ann Voskamp talks about it in a book I read a couple years ago titled, “One Thousand Gifts.” The Bible talks about it a LOT. It’s called thanksgiving (no, not turkey and dressing with mashed potatoes, piled high with butter, and oh! Pecan pie…oops, why did I just type that? Oh ya, I miss home cooked meals with family!! I digress)…Thanksgiving. When I remain present and give God thanks for the moment I am in, describing to Him the things I am experiencing with my five senses, plus my emotions they evoke, I am able to beat the time lapse video and weigh time down with my presence. I’ve realized that when I remember to do this and I invite God into it with me, His presence has even more weight and I experience a glimpse of His glory and what it is to glorify Him. Something I spent a great deal of the first half of this Race trying to understand better.
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.” (Ecclesiastes)
We start to see Him all around us when we live this way; fully present and full of praise. This Race has been a struggle in a million different ways, but it has also been a blessing for it has been cultivating in me eyes that are eager to see Him at work in and around me. This has been one incredible journey in teaching me about what it is to live in a state of Thanksgiving daily because even though I may not see all the options, there is always a choice; will I choose joy in this moment or will I grumble and find ways to complain? Will I see the blessing or focus on the negative? We always, always have a choice. In a lot of ways, the limits that have been placed on me in all these different countries have allowed me to better see the limitlessness of God. It helps that there are fewer distractions and the pace is slower, but it challenges me to desire that for my life at home as well.
I am not always so good at this though, don’t misunderstand me. I have a hard time not thinking about a good, long soak in a hot bathtub with a good smelling candle while sipping my hot tea…all….by…my…self! To be alone. Wow. That hasn’t happened in almost 11 months. I daydream about it and I start to question where I will be, what I will be doing and who with, but then God brings me back. He has a way of doing this at just the right moment lately and I look around and start to concentrate on my senses. I see and hear Nicaraguan kids laughing and playing with these women I am serving alongside this month; women with beautiful hearts who are just as eager and sad about our last goodbyes to each other coming soon. I smell lunch and say a prayer of thanks to the Lord for the women preparing it for us (fried chicken today! He really is listening). I feel the smooth rock or the chair, back and forth, and the cool breeze that touches me as I sit in this beautiful chair on the porch here, overlooking a field full of papaya trees and banana plants.
And in these moments, when I slow it all down and sing a song of praise, I begin to understand more of how the waiting works. I realize that joy is ushered in through the waiting. When I wait with a humble anticipation on the Lord, my hope is secure and peace is found. It all centers around hope and our hope centers on Him. And I find myself eager to see His faithfulness as I remain obedient to what He has laid before me. I anticipate His faithfulness without expectation as to how exactly the fulfillment of it will come. I just have to lean in and trust. That’s all He asks in these moments; to realize His faithfulness thus far and to remember that He can’t change; He can’t be unfaithful.
The quote above by JI Packer mentions for us to ‘do nothing when in doubt but continue to wait on the Lord.’ To wait doesn’t mean idol ness or stagnation; it means to bind tightly to the One on whom you are waiting and continue seeking Him. What the future holds after the Race, I’m not exactly sure, we’re still working a lot of those details out together, so I continue to wait. But, I wait in full confidence He’ll reveal it to me when I need to know. And then a song comes to mind from Isaiah 40 that echoes my heart cry and I feel encouraged,
“Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord. We will wait up the Lord, we will wait up on the Lord…”
“…but they who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles…” (Isaiah 40:31)
