The Reward in the Waiting

"They that wait upon the Lord shall renew thy strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint."
 Is. 40:31

Patience has become a lost art for many people, including myself depending on what I'm being called to be patient with.  Whether with people or situations, I am not always successful in depicting this virtue and taking the time to wait.

I call it being spoiled in my inability to exhibit patience.  We do have an instant society, for sure; but it is in the bountiful blessings-at least for me, that lies in the foundations of my resistance to waiting.  I admittedly have taken my God for granted far too many times, just believing I'm going to get my wants and needs exactly when I want and need it.  Then, I sometimes take it to another level and begin to become frustrated at the pace or lack thereof of the things or people I'm looking for.  I don't know about you, but sometimes, these frustrations take on a dramatic form of an unpleasant nature that really is down right ugly! 

There are other reasons though, that make waiting so tenuous for people.  Many of us do not like the tension; the un-comfortability it creates in us, particularly when we don't know what the end result will be.  We sometimes believe that certain things we shouldn't have to wait for, and for somethings like basic civil rights that is true.  And yet, we who are African Americans and other peoples of color are marginalized and treated differently here in the 21st century!  As an African American woman, I could ask 'How much longer do I have to wait?'

However, even in such important human rights matters, there is a reward in the waiting!  I have recently been in a season of waiting in several areas of my life and I cannot pretend that it was anything less than torturous!  Yet, when I stopped fighting the waiting, when I let go of control of the process that I hadn't even realized I was in the midst of, then I received many rewards--even without an apparent outcome in the midst of waiting.  

When I stopped fighting the waiting, I discovered some things about myself.  Beside being more controlling than I actually thought I was, I received the reward of surrender.  I had no alternative but to surrender my all: concerns, cares, anxieties and hopes to the Lord.  When I did, I was scared, but I got permission; I got room to rest in God's presence and care.  It is difficult for someone like myself, as a believer and as a minister to admit that I wasn't wholly surrendered to God, because I still held on to parts of my life that I felt that only I could handle properly.  This was ignorant, but admit it or not, we all have those tendencies.
Another reward in the waiting was the sweetness of depending on God.  Many of us are leaders in some way shape or form, but who doesn't like it when you have an assurance that someone greater than ourselves; who actually loves us will take the lead in your concerns and we can be confident that everything will be okay-no matter what the outcome?

So today, as I am still in that same period of waiting I mentioned earlier, am I any less impatient?  Sometimes; I find I that I do make more attempts to invoke patience in myself instead of allowing frustrations to grow.  But, I am now conscious to what God has for me in the space between expectation and outcome.  God is rich in rewards in the waiting!