STILL WAITING

Scripture is filled with waiting. Most of it is not pleasant or desirable waiting. It is circumstantial waiting. We have all been through these seasons.

I am thinking of the 437 years that Israel waited in Egypt for release from slavery and return to their homeland. In fact, they had been in slavery for so many generations that few could still remember their homeland, customs and traditions. Israel waited again during their Babylonian Captivity lasting fifty years before their return to Judah

At this present time there is waiting for the Return of the Lord. It has been 2000 years… four and a half times as long as the Israelites waited in Egypt. The wait is for deliverance and return. It is still the same: waiting for the homeland, the place of belonging after exile.

The problem with waiting is losing heart, losing faith, losing the reality that it will really happen… someday. It is so very important to combat waiting with as much focused activity and faith as possible. We are called to work and wait believing it will surely come… someday. Perhaps the key to waiting is to actively work as if ‘when’ is not nearly as important ‘why.’ If we wait in the ‘Kingdom now’ and the ‘Kingdom not yet’ we have the possibility of retaining faith until the end of the wait. Our wait is for the New Heavens and the New Earth. So… we wait.

“I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” Jesus