“How long, O LORD will you forget me? How long will you hide your face? How long must I bear grief in my soul, this sorrow in my heart day and night?…Look to me, answer me, O LORD my God!…” (Psalm 13)
How hard it is to wait! Impatience, doubt, discouragement – how easy these are to fall into when I have been praying and waiting for something to happen – something good – for so long, and there’s no sign, no encouraging progress or evidence.
I’ve understood for a long time that Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden was grounded in disbelief in the goodness of God and a lack of trust in his love for them. Recently, though, I read something that I had never thought of before: the idea that their disobedience to God’s command was, in part, from impatience. God had given them freedom to roam the beautiful, bountiful garden he had given them, and eat freely of all the trees save one: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why? Perhaps they were like children who weren’t mature enough to handle that knowledge without it corrupting them? Perhaps, like children, they needed training in obedience and trust? Perhaps they required more experience in discerning what was actually best for them, experience which would grow in time? Seen from this perspective, their disobedience was like that of impulsive adolescents who think they’re big enough, old enough, and smart enough, to handle things that are ‘way beyond them. They took what God eventually would have given to them when the time was right, when they had matured and grown wise enough. Their disbelief and impatience brought disaster upon themselves and the rest of creation.
Anyway, this was an interesting perspective to consider in light of how it so often feels to me when I’ve been waiting: I want to do something to hurry things up, find a solution, fix the problem. I don’t want to just pray and wait. If there’s not much (if anything at all) I can or should do, I feel frustrated. Like the Psalmist, I wonder: where’s God?
Impatience stems from anxiety, which is fear: fear that nothing will change; that all is ruined, hopeless, irredeemable; that God won’t, in fact, come through for me. This fear comes from imperfect trust in God’s goodness, wisdom, and sovereignty over every situation and circumstance, his uncanny ability to cause “all things to work together for good”. I must remind myself: when I have to wait, it’s actually an opportunity to grow in trust; to strengthen that faith “muscle”, to renew hope in God’s ways, and to show my love for him by waiting for his answer.
The Psalmist chooses that route: “As for me, I trust in your love. Let my heart rejoice in your saving help: let me sing to the LORD for his goodness to me…” He models an affirmation, a “sacrifice of praise ” in the midst of his struggle that’s worth emulating. I can choose to do the same, to affirm God’s goodness and wait in hope. Will I do it? Perhaps if I do, my emotions will eventually catch up, perhaps even before I see the answer.
Lessons From Love School 