...waiting

In my spiritual walk, waiting often resembles this cringe-worthy (albeit very accurate) metaphor:If you've ever ridden in the backseat of a minivan whose owners have small children, you're probably familiar with the ever-present "crushed up cracker" phenomenon that seems to happen. Regardless of the family, there always seems to be some sort of cracker that, bearing little resemblance to its original form, is strewn in crumbs all across the seat.Now, riding in the minivan represents time waiting, the driver is the Lord, and the cranky child in the backseat is me. Got it?In the backseat, I suddenly decide that I'm hungry. NOW. My father lovingly glances back at me, reminding me that there is Chick-fil-A with extra Polynesian sauce at home, if I will only wait a few minutes.Although I know he has something that I'll love, and I know that my hunger will be satisfied if I will simply be patient, my hangriness makes me desperate. What if there isn't really Chick-fil-A? What if it's not enough to fill me up?Frantically, I start plucking crushed up cracker crumbs from the seat beside me, throwing a meager solution at a more heavy issue. I didn't trust the father's plan enough to wait, thus settling for so much less than the goodness he had in store.Is this is a horribly cheesy example? Yes. But is this often how I find myself (and others) operating? Also yes. I settle for crumbs when the Lord has a feast in store, but I don't want to live that way any more.  In my period of waiting, the Lord has faithfully and gently reminded me to trust him in a variety of ways. Not only do I regularly hear him speaking "Just wait" and "Micah do you trust me?" over me, but he's also spoken through scripture, trusted friends, and spiritual readings— I should learn to take a hint.The Lord directed me to Isaiah 30:21 one morning and spoke it through a friend that same afternoon:

"Your own ears will hear him,/ Right behind you a voice will say,/ "This is the way you should go,"/ whether to the right or to the left."

Regardless of where the Lord directs me, I must remember that he is the one directing my steps; it is merely my job to listen and follow. In realizing that my position is to follow, I've also realized that my concept of waiting as being stagnant and stationery is false. Rather than sitting and twiddling my thumbs in anticipation of what the Lord has next for me, I need to wait actively.This concept of walking while waiting, rather than sitting passively, never fully clicked until I recently read this passage from Henri Nouwen's Finding My Way Home:

"Most of us consider waiting as something very passive, a hopeless state determined by events totally out of our hands...But there is none of this passivity in Scripture. Those who are waiting are waiting very actively. They know that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which we are standing...If we wait in the conviction that a seed has been planted and that something has already begun, it changes the way we wait. Active waiting implies being fully present to the moment with the conviction that something is happening where we are and that we want to be present to it. A waiting person is someone who is present to the moment, believing that this moment is the moment."

I want to wait actively, living in the present moment with the Lord, and believing that any moment could be the one that my period of waiting could end.  The idea of active waiting surfaced yet again this week in Allison Allen's Shine. The author explains her old feelings, similar to my own, about waiting on the Lord:

"Naively, I equated waiting time with wasted time. I equated waiting with nothingness."

However, as she sought to pursue the periods of waiting as Jesus did, she learned to wait actively, she realized this:

"It is not the waiting itself that matters as much as what we do with the waiting...Jesus's time of waiting is active and engaged."

Lord, may my time of waiting mirror the way that your son waited.In reading and hearing the truth about active, biblical waiting this week—and letting that truth seep in the dry and weary crevices of my heart—I've pressed into Jesus and allowed him to supply strength to wait actively. To wait for direction about my future, career, and every area of uncertainty that keeps me awake at night.Lord, give me the strength to wait actively and walk with you through the uncertainty. Grant me the patience to anticipate the feast you have in store, rather than settling for the cracker crumbs of my own contrivance.I trust you in the waiting.