WAITING ON THE WORLD
I waited all day for the rain to become snow. But rain has its own deception. No matter the conditions, there are things that simply can never be. And still, we wait...sometimes from the hoping, and sometimes because of things we may never understand or even know.
There have been months I have waited for evidence of answered prayer. I wonder, when it comes to the raw honesty of my brokenness, how long God has waited for me?
What am I waiting for—what great earthshaking event do I perceive to be completely out of my grasp?
The more powerful question is— what is mine alone to shape, to transform that is left undone, unattended, unsaid?
The lies of waiting, and there are many, start with believing there is time ahead.
And there is the lie that the things that burden us are for someone else to fix instead.
We have ignored the little cues placed directly in our path and missed our moment to change the course of humanity, not in big sweeping gestures, but by simply doing what we can.
What if we have perceived incorrectly that the waiting is ours when it is the world that has been waiting for us all along? Imagine the inexhaustible forcefield of energy that your indecision has put on perpetual pause. I am left breathless by the implications of this.
Can you not comprehend that there is no mystery to what must be done? What must be done is what you have already been told. You know. You know you know—
It’s in the refusal to hesitate when someone needs your help even when they didn’t ask.
It’s in the prayer for healing you committed to say and then let the moment slip.
It’s in the kind word you have difficulty sharing with someone who hurt you last week.
It’s in the calm in your voice during a heated conversation with someone on the other end of the phone.
It’s in turning your frustration into recognition that life is just a little harder for everyone.
It’s in admitting that you couldn’t see something about a situation that should have been obvious.
It’s in believing that you might be the only person in someone’s day that gives them hope.
All the little, insignificant, hardly-make-a-difference things. These are not merely the details we lament as we wait for our world to change... but the change we seek itself.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.
Romans 12: 1-2