Waiting

A couple of friends rescued me today and took me out for a Dairy Queen Blizzard. That goes a long way. It’s been a long time since I was taken out for a Blizzard. Sometimes my role forces me to be the bad guy. Sometimes I take on that role myself. Both times it’s not much fun. Blizzards go a long way to take off the edge. I’ve been frustrated this week because I’ve been the point person on something that continues to get resistance. I’ve got more than my share of the blame, but I get defensive too and that doesn’t help. It’s frustrating to have to worry about fire codes and insurance requirements and policies to protect against child abuse, but that’s part of my world right now. If only the intention to do good was enough. I’m also facing a delay in one of my plans. My friend Sandy helped me more than he knows when he sent me this:

I wait for the LORD , my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. (Psalm 130:5-6)

And then this from Living the Message by Eugene Peterson:

Waiting does not mean doing nothing. It is not fatalistic resignation. It means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions…It is the opposite of desperate and panicky manipulations, of scurrying and worrying. And hoping is not dreaming. It is not spinning an illusion of fantasy to protect us from our boredom or our pain. It means a confident alert expectation that God will do what he said he will do. It is imagination put in the harness of faith. It is a willingness to let him do it his way and in his time. It is the opposite of making plans that we demand that God put into effect, telling him both how and when to do it. That is not hoping in God but bullying God. “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.”

My soul is waiting.