Waiting Is My Favorite Thing
When the movie “Bucket List” hit the theaters, it created a groundswell of people who jotted down their own bucket lists of things they’d want to do before they kick the bucket. No rules. No money or time restrictions.
The concept isn’t new. I wrote out a list of “Things to Do Before I’m Thirty” which was transferred onto my list of “Things to Do Before I’m Forty/Fifty” which has now become “Things to Do Before I Die or the End of the World, Either One.”
Pages from my journals. Scraps of paper tucked into my Bible. Coffee-ringed notebooks of ideas I thought would bless me.
Write a novel. (Done.)
Write a second novel. (Working on it.)
Get my passport. (Again, working on it.)
Use passport to visit Tuscany, New Zealand, and any number of tropical resorts. (See number four.)
Learn French.
Speak at women’s retreats. (Dream come true.)
I’ve pawed through those lists in all their various hiding places and have yet to find the word wait. It never occurred to me to value the idea of or to crave waiting. What was I thinking? I could have crossed that one off the list with pages of hash marks for the dozens, hundreds, thousands of times I had the privilege of experiencing my dream come true—having to wait.
For whom is waiting their favorite thing? Their “must do before I die”?
The customer service rep comes back on the phone line and says, “Sorry for the wait.”
“Oh, no, no! I can’t thank you enough! Waiting’s my favorite thing!”
That’s like writing “experience intense pain” or “work as many root canals into schedule as possible” on our bucket lists. Who would do that?
But when we wait with the Lord, snuggled up to Him, listening to the rhythm of His steady heartbeat and the reassurances of His purposes during our waiting times, they can be among the richest of life experiences.
Is waiting my favorite thing? Not yet. Is it on my list? No. Is it on the Lord’s list for me? Yes.
PRAYER: Lord God, I want to learn how to value the waiting times You’ve written into my schedule. Help me discover why the word wait is not offensive to You. When it shows up on my calendar, give me grace to embrace it.
“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on the Lord,” Psalm 27:14 KJV.
Today’s devotional is by Cynthia Ruchti, writer and producer of the radio ministry THE HEARTBEAT OF THE HOME and current president of American Christian Fiction Writers. Cynthia’s debut novel—They Almost Always Come Home—releases from Abingdon Press in Spring 2010. Cynthia writes stories of hope that glows in the dark. www.cynthiaruchti.com
