I wait for the LORD; my soul waits for him. —Psalm 130:4
In Spanish, the verb esperar means both "to wait" and "to hope." I often wonder if waiting for a native Spanish speaker has a different purpose than for me. When I wait I feel like I'm wasting time. What if I were to use these moments to dream, to pray, or to reflect on what God is doing in my life.
We English speakers are often impatient. We like to make things happen - NOW. Our dominant culture here in the United States is very goal/task oriented. We spend a lot of time figuring out mission statements and vision statements for our churches and our organizations and when they're done we check them off the list. But do we ever appreciate what we're doing?
All of that future orientation has its own good qualities. We live in time, and our lives are marked by calendar events – birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. We tend to move seamlessly from one season to another, barely having put away Christmas decorations when the Valentine's hearts appear to lure us to buy more than we should.
Time is not something we create, nor is it something we produce. It is a river in which we move, oblivious to where. Wait is one of those time words that make us cringe. Wait, is the advice of the writers of the psalms. Wait in hope. Wait gently, patiently. Wait with an open heart, with quiet listening. Let God speak within the movement of your day. Stop and sit and wait. Notice what you see, hear, taste, touch, smell. Allow eternity to break through the inexorable rush of tick-tock time.
Wait, and in the waiting discover your soul, the part of you that is not bound by time, by goals, by tasks, but gently hopes to savor this life and your time on earth. When waiting ask yourself, "Who am I?" then listen for the response. May I learn to wait in hope, and to hope when I need to wait.