I Hate Waiting
“My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.”
I am an impatient cuss. Waiting is not one of my spiritual gifts. If impatience were an Olympic sport, I’d have been carrying the American flag at last Friday’s opening ceremonies. Most people do not enjoy waiting, so why does God make us wait? Perhaps learning a little more about the Biblical meaning of the word will help us appreciate why God puts us through the waiting process.
Once again, I turn to Matthew Schlimm’s book 70 Hebrew Words Every Christian Should Know for guidance on how to wait faithfully. In Biblical Hebrew, “waiting” and “hope” have the same root. Schlimm points out, “To hope for something, then, is closely related to waiting for it to happen.” Psalm 62:5 conveys the meaning, “For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him.” First, everyone around me wishes I’d wait in silence. Second, it does help to focus on the benefit we receive from waiting. At the DMV, it is an updated driver’s license. Waiting on God produces an infinitely more beneficial gift.
Then, Matthew Schlimm surprised me by connecting “wait” and “hope” with the seemingly unrelated word “cord.” Schlimm reminds the reader of Joshua 2, “When Israelite spies scope out the city of Jericho. They spend the night with a woman named Rahab. The spies promise her that no harm will come during their invasion if she ties a red cord to her window. When Jericho falls, the house with the red cord stands alone.” The word “cord” in ancient Hebrew is the same as the word “hope” and the same root as “wait.” The spies put their hope in God’s protection by waiting, with the red cord exposed. The red cord provided similar protection, not unlike the red blood over the doorposts at the Passover event.
As Schlimm points out, “Hope is a cord attached to something bigger in the future.” There is a benefit to waiting, and God will not, ultimately, disappoint us. Biblical history verifies that God is worthy of our waiting. Abraham and Sarah waited for progeny; the enslaved Israelites waited for freedom; and Christians wait on Christ’s second coming. Our wait is never in vain. The next time you are frustrated by waiting, remember that God is at work, making our hope a reality. The next time I feel impatient, I hope I remember that God is using the cord to bind us to Godself, so that our wait will bring eternal fulfillment. That is a promise worth waiting for.
