Not Yet

If I were to take a guess, I would say that most of us are not fond of waiting. I don’t think that is a shock to anyone. In so many ways, our modern life delivers what we want when we want it. If I want strawberries in the winter, I just go to the grocery store. If I want to listen to a Beatles song, I ask my phone to play it for me. If I want to travel halfway around the world, I jump on an airplane and I am there in a day. Decades ago, we would have heard questions like these: Are the strawberries ripe? No, not yet. Are the Beatles playing in town today? No, not yet. Are we there yet? No, we’ll be there in a few weeks.

Waiting is inherently a spiritual discipline. Most of the time when we wait, we are prevented from having what we want because of something outside of our control. We can’t make the traffic open up, nor can we make our broken bones heal faster. We have to wait. Waiting forces us into a position of submission to the situation. Waiting makes us put aside the fulfillment of our desires due to a reality greater than ourselves. And while we wait, a spiritual battle rages within us. Perhaps we rage against whatever is holding us back. Maybe we feel a sense of entitlement. Sometimes we feel exasperated, especially if we’ve had to wait a lot. If we’re disciplined, we can wait and be content at the same time. That’s easier said than done.

Is waiting wasted time? My thinking on this has changed over the years. When I was younger, I definitely struggled with impatience and felt that any time waiting was wasted. If I wasn’t doing what I wanted, then that time wasn’t worth much at all. As I matured spiritually, I found that the waiting was often as significant as what I was waiting for. Sometimes when we wait, we can observe the world around us because we’ve actually stopped for a moment. Waiting helps us to evaluate our deepest desires and reveal the stories we tell ourselves about others, especially those holding up the process. Waiting also teaches us to trust God that what we are waiting for will actually become a reality.

During the season of Advent, we remember how the people of God had to wait for their Messiah to come. Year after year, it was “not yet,” but those years were not wasted. As they waited, God revealed more and more about who this Messiah was to be for the people. This is the one who would fulfill the covenant to Abraham that “all the families of the earth would be blessed.” This is the ultimate king from the line of David, born of a virgin in Bethlehem. This would be the suffering servant who would take the sins of the people upon himself. For decades on end the answer was “not yet.” We have the stories of “not yet.” It’s called the Old Testament.

At just the right time, the Messiah arrived, and after all that waiting, he wasn’t what many people were expecting. In fact, some rejected that Jesus was the Messiah at all. You see, waiting is inherently a spiritual discipline. The Old Testament teaches us how (and how not) to wait. It teaches us how to be humble and trust in God and his timing. It teaches us that God is still active in the world, even as we wait. It teaches us to release control and to submit to God. Jesus was exactly what we needed, even if some didn’t see it that way. One day, Jesus will come back and put this world back the way it is supposed to be. It’s going to be awesome. It’s just “not yet.” In the meantime, let’s learn the lessons from waiting and be ready when Jesus comes again. He’s worth the wait.