Jesus is sitting with me.

Text: Romans 8:19-25, Colossians 3:15-17

“Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.” 
– Isaiah 49:23b, ESV

Since I was a little girl, I thought the next thing was going to be better. I thought the next stage of life was going to save me from the ills that had befallen me in my current day-to-day.

I would never, ever think of being thankful while I waited, because I just couldn’t stop thinking about how Then must be better than Now. I thought this for years, even as life stage after life stage passed me by with no relief. The next thing never made it better.

But, that didn’t stop me from hoping. And I don’t mean I hoped in a holy way. I hoped with a discontent spirit, an unholy longing.

All that hoping for the next season stopped when I found myself in one unchangeable, immovable time. There was nothing I could do to change my circumstances. There was no way around this time of life, and the only way I was going to come out on the other side was to endure.

That endurance, that sanctifying wait, showed me something I’d never understood before. During that time of waiting, that time that I could not trade, I learned that sometimes waiting is the season. Sometimes endurance is the lesson. Sometimes simply getting through it is the most sanctifying, holy thing you can do.

In Romans 8, Paul talks about how all creation is groaning for the coming days when all is made right. Can you relate to Paul’s words when you think of your own times of waiting? Can you also hope and pray for the sanctification that will come in your waiting?

I was forever changed when I stopped looking to the next season to make my life better and started looking to Jesus. I started looking to Him in my times of waiting, in my times of enduring, and in my times of just getting through. When I looked to Jesus, I realized He would be with me in the Then but He was also with me in the Now. I didn’t need to get to a new season of life to know Him.

So, while you groan, while you wait with expectation, can you also look to Jesus and ask that He sit with you? We’re all waiting for something, and it’s a blessed thing to look straight in the face of Jesus and know that He waits with us. Thank goodness.

As we conclude our study of giving thanks in all things—and as we wait for the coming Glory of our Lord when we will praise Him face to face—let’s pray the words of Colossians 3:15-17 for ourselves and for each other as a community:

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

He is good. He is faithful. Amen.