When God says, "Wait."

When I was about 30 years old, I sensed my time of ministry in my current church may be coming to an end. Although I loved my church and my ministry, I was burnt out and exhausted. I had taken some time off to decompress, but was not able to return to a place of spiritual and mental health.

As I took the matter to prayer, I felt like God was telling me to leave, but he did not tell me where to go. It is a very faith-fuelled journey to leave a place of ministry without a specific place to go, and I spent four months waiting for something to happen, wondering if I heard correctly, and worrying about finances until finally the next place of ministry opened up.

Have you ever come to an end of a chapter of life and hit a wall of waiting? It's a weird in-between place where you've finished reading the last page of your current chapter, but God has not flipped the page to the next one. Even if you know what the chapter entails, you may still be waiting for it to begin.

If you can understand how that might feel, then you can likely empathize how the disciples felt on this day two thousand years ago.

Today is Ascension Day in the Christian calendar - the 40th day after Easter Sunday and the day Jesus ascended into heaven. This was the end of a huge chapter in the life of the disciples, but it was not the beginning of the next. And so Jesus gave his followers clear but difficult instructions:

While staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait...
~ Acts 1:4

The disciples were not burnt out or exhausted. In fact, they were just the opposite - joyful, energized, and eager to get started. But Jesus said, "You're not ready yet. You need to wait until I clothe you with power." Even though it was only ten days of waiting, I can imagine there may have been some impatient toe-tapping and watch-checking going on.

Have you ever wondered why the transition between chapters was not immediate? Why did the Holy Spirit not descend as Jesus ascended? Why make them wait?

Because God shapes us through waiting.

God had been present to the disciples in the person of Jesus. That chapter was ending. The next chapter, when God would be present to the them in the Holy Spirit, was coming. For some reason unknown to us (the reason for waiting is often unknown for us), God wanted to do something in them. He wanted to shape them. He wanted to prepare them. And that meant waiting.

We don't like waiting, especially if we don't understand why we're waiting. Yet there is always a reason. Sometimes it's for the sake of timing. Sometimes it's for the sake of rest. Sometimes it's for the sake of growing our hunger for God. Sometimes it's for the sake of emptying ourselves of ourselves.

We usually don't know the reason, but God does, and that's the key.

PAUSE and REFLECT: Are you in a place of waiting? What emotions are coming up for you? Or, if you're not waiting for God right now, what emotions usually come up when you are? 

I would like to suggest three possible responses to when we hit that wall of waiting.

First, we can pray. This this is what the disciples did, at least some of the time. Prayer is active waiting, when we surrender ourselves to God's timing and purposes. As a dear old saint told me once, "Prayer isn't the only thing we should do, but it's the first thing we should do."

Second, we can remember we are not alone. The disciples were waiting for the Holy Spirit. We wait with the Holy Spirit. That's a big difference. Even though we wait for God, we also wait with God, and he waits with us.

Third, we can journal. This may be a less common response, but as I look back through my journal entries, those times of waiting provided some of the deepest and most honest insight into my life, heart, and faith. Journaling helped me reflect on and make sense of that time.

That said, I don't think we can "learn our way" out of waiting, like if we would just hurry up and learn what God wanted us to learn he would flip the page to the next chapter. Nor do I think it's our fault if that page is not flipping as fast as we'd like. Waiting is not the result of us doing something wrong. In fact, it's usually the result of us doing right, and God wanting to stretch us into the next chapter.

So whether you are waiting now or will be in the future, whether your waiting is days or months long, whether it seems easy or is driving you to your knees, remember that God is shaping you. He is good, and he loves you, which is likely why you're waiting.

Waiting is a very difficult place to be, yet perhaps it's also the right place to be. Until it's not. Then the page will flip.

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Photo by Daniele Colucci on Unsplash