Superior Address: Wait
“All good things come to those who wait!” My mother used to say that to my brothers and sister and me when we were growing up – and I hated it! “No, can’t I have it NOW?” – we’d plead. “Please, can you buy me a Chelsea football shirt?” “No, you’ll have to wait till the end of the month.” “O no, why can’t I have it now?”
In our Western society, we hate having to wait. At the supermarket, deciding which lane will be the shortest. You make a choice, and it’s the wrong one. All the other lanes are moving much faster. Shall I swap? If only I’d chosen the other lane: now I’ve got to wait. Or you are driving, stopped at a red light, that’s been red for ages – and then it goes to green, and the car in front doesn’t seem to have noticed – O come on! Or at the airport: you look at the board for your flight, and see the dreaded word ‘DELAYED.” O no, I’ve got to wait another hour.
We hate to wait. We want everything NOW. We like INSTANT. If you want it, why not have it? Why Wait? Buy now, pay later. We like to touch a button and we have light, music, TV instantly. We like shops where we can buy what we want when we want. No longer do we have to wait for the right season to enjoy certain foods. Things are dried, frozen, packaged, so there’s no need to wait.
And even relationships are now formed or lost in an instant. On Facebook we can make a friend at the touch of a button – and more sinister – we can unfriend a friend in an instant. I tried the Facebook Help Center and it assured me that I could do this in just three easy steps. (1) Go to your friend’s profile. (2) “Hover” over the word ‘Friends’ at the top of their profile. (3) Select ‘unfriend’ and CLICK – no more friend. Easy and instant.
“All good things come to those who wait,” my mother would say – and we all groaned and complained. But now I’m older, I think she was right. We don’t always like it, it’s countercultural: it’s radical, but it’s true.
Today is the first in our series on radical practices – radical practices which we can maybe embrace and welcome during this season of Lent. And the first radical practice – one which I believe can transform our lives – is the practice of WAITING.
If you have lost touch with the wisdom of waiting in your life, I believe you’ve lost touch with part of your soul. Scripture is shot through with the power and wisdom of waiting. God it seems LIKES us to wait. For if we never allow ourselves to spend time waiting – waiting patiently, even when it’s boring or annoying, if we always insist on getting what we want instantly, we are doomed to a life of superficiality. When we have to wait, however frustrating and uncomfortable, we are actually opening ourselves up to God, and to God’s work within us. God likes us to wait, because when we are waiting, we open ourselves up, and we become vulnerable to God’s spirit slowly changing us, forming us, and helping us to grow.