Tired of Waiting

"I'm tired of waiting!" I was taken a bit back by the rudeness of this interruption. I was in the middle of a Bible study. The service had gone smoothly up to this point. Worshiping with songs of praise was awesome. Two short testimonies about God's awesome power had everyone excited.

As any Bible teacher will tell you, the smoother the start, the easier it is to get the attention of everyone when you start to teach. I was feeling good. Before reading the opening scripture I opened up with a prayer, thanking God for using me in His hands as its instrument.

"Please open your Bibles to Psalm 27:14," I said to the circle after I closed in prayer. "Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the L..." Before I could even finish, the guy interrupted me, yelled out, "I'm tired of waiting!"

The whole circle turned from looking at me to looking at him. He was new to the circle. This was only his second time there. However, not once had he said a word. He had come silently and left silently. So the fact that he spoke was surprising in itself. But the interruption was even more shocking.

"I've been waiting for 14 years now. And I'm done waiting. That's all we do in prison is wait ... and now you want me to wait even more."

He actually made some sense. You see, prison life can be summed up in one word: waiting. All inmates live in a state of waiting. They wait for their sentence to finish. They wait in-line to eat chow. They wait to receive medical attention. They wait for their cell door to open. They wait for mail. They wait to see if any long-lost-friend will send them money. Waiting, it's what an inmate does.

I acknowledged this man's concern and issue, but asked him if he could talk to me at the end of the study. He agreed and I continued.

In the end, I sat down with him and shared that I totally understand what he meant. But that waiting for the Lord was not an inactive waiting, but an active one. Waiting for the Lord is much easier when we are in the Lord. To be in the Lord, we must accept what He did for us and confess our sins to Him. Accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior now – today – and walk in His ways.

"As we walk, we wait." I explained to him. Waiting on the Lord is much deeper and richer than just plain ol' waiting. Waiting on the Lord is not standing still, but moving forward.

"Trusting Jesus for each step we take is a form of waiting?" he asked in a sincere tone.

"Yes!"

"But I'm so tired of waiting, I need to renew my strength. I need to unload my heavy burdens ... and no one seems to care." he said in a hush tone, almost like if he wanted to cry.

"Jesus cures...and He is waiting for you to unload it all on Him." I said. Then I opened up my Bible and read him a verse out of Isaiah 40: "They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."

"Yeah," he said. "I need that renewed strength. Can you show me how to get it?"

So I did. The amazing thing about the brother is that he was never meaning to be rude ... he was just looking for help. We often come to times in our lives when we don't know what to do. With Jesus in our lives, it is easy to look unto Him for direction during these difficult times. But without Jesus, one just feels tired – tired of waiting.

The lesson I would like to express today is this: While we wait for the Lord, we also wait in the Lord. And while we are in the Lord our journey becomes much lighter. With our sins nailed to the cross, we can confidently move forward as we wait.

Have you been waiting too? Have you been waiting in the Lord, or have you been waiting away from Him? There is only one way to wait, and that's in Him.

...waiting, but no longer tired of doing so,

Adrian G. Torres