How to Wait (Friday Devotional)

 

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

- Romans 12:12

This past Wednesday, I spent an inordinate amount of time waiting. At 9:30 I waited for twenty minutes while an unhurried mechanic changed my car’s oil. At 11:00 I waited with Katherine for thirty minutes while Andrew had his swim class. At 11:45 I waited at the railroad tracks as a DART train went by. And then at 1:00 I waited for fifteen minutes after getting my second dose of the COVID vaccine.

That last wait, as you might imagine, felt a little different from the ones that had come before it. After all, those fifteen minutes of waiting weren’t really just fifteen minutes, they were the culmination of more than 13 months of waiting—waiting for an end to scary headlines, waiting for no anxiety in crowds, waiting for normalcy. So in those fifteen minutes, I didn’t do what I’d done during my oil change or at the DART crossing—I didn’t play on my phone, I didn’t drum my fingers, I didn’t anxiously watch the clock. Instead I prayed, thanking God for the shot of hope in my left arm, for the people who had made it possible, and for his provision this last year.

It got me thinking—what if that was our default response to waiting, from the most trivial moments of impatience to the most strenuous of life’s tribulations? What if instead of seeking distractions during life’s pauses, we sought God? What if we filled the silence with prayer?

Scripture encourages us to rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, and be constant in prayer. Perhaps those three commands are more connected than we might think—maybe the key to patience in hard times is found in worship and prayer. Waiting is never easy—but when your waits are spent with God, they become time well spent.