I’m sitting in a cafe on a rooftop in Antigua, Guatemala, waiting for a dirty chai with almond milk (frío, por favor!). The thing is, I’ve done a lot of waiting lately, usually under less boujee circumstances. I’ve been waiting for two quetzal chicken buses to arrive to take me to the parque central. I’ve been waiting for rainy season storms to subside to walk to the high school where I teach my morning English classes. I’ve been waiting, for quite a while now, to return to the United States after nine months abroad.
All of this waiting leads me to ponder why our society assigns a negative connotation to the word. My conjecture is that in an age of continuous innovation and technological advancements, convenience is always preferable. We are a microwave generation, trained never to settle for what adds extraneous complication. It’s been made so easy, in fact, one might wonder why anyone would choose not to eliminate the waiting process. We can access an entire database of knowledge in one hand by pulling out our phones in the check-out lines. Despite boundaries and time zones, we can talk face-to-face on screens, nullifying the archaic postal system. Cakes can be made in mugs in five minutes. Time is precious, after all. There are always more productive uses of our minutes than merely waiting, right?
Could it be, however, that by casting aside the practice of waiting, we are numbing ourselves down to drones, throwing away a fundamental part of our existence?
One of biggest lies our world likes to tell is that waiting equates dullness; to wait for something means that you do not possess your full potential. We wait to finish high school, only to wait to finish college. We wait for a job that pays the bills, only to wait for a dream job that will finally satisfy. We wait for a spouse, only to wait for children. We wait for Friday nights. We wait for our old jeans to fit again. We wait for life to begin. Perhaps we even wait to stop waiting.
Despite our societal accomplishments, eradicating waiting altogether is not a current possibility. I don’t think this is so bad.
(Insert a gag-reflex triggering cliche about how ‘it’s about the journey, not the destination’). That said, it goes further than this.
It is not the waiting that is problem. It is our posture in waiting.
There is so much life found in those in-between moments. There is excitement and hope and stillness underlying the open-endedness of life.
Our Creator speaks into these waiting times. He asks us to celebrate, faithfully doing away with worldly preoccupations and sitting with Him. The truth is that His wisdom is far more intricate that we can imagine. He promises that mysteries hidden for generations will be revealed to us. Yet, how can we hear them if we close our ears and shut our eyes? How can we appreciate this beauty if we are not willing to wait for it?
“Therefore, return to your God, Observe kindness and justice, and wait for your God continually.” Hosea 12:6
The battle has already been won. God declares that his promises will always be fulfilled. What use is worry if our fears have already been conquered? Let us celebrate as we wait (a foreign concept, I’m sure).
As I enter my final month on the Race, I am confident that this is a season of waiting. I rise each day expectantly, satisfied with the peace of knowing that wondrous moments lie both ahead and around me. I wait, but not with my head into my chest and my eyes closed. There is so much to observe, and so much that will be revealed.
So.
Take a breath. Let it out.
Wait for it.
