Wait (originally posted on Facebook January 4, 2011)

This word sticks out at me like a sore thumb every time I see it. It's another 4 letter word. Every time I hear or see this word, I groan inwardly. My whole life I have been WAITING for something. I hate waiting. I am not a patient person by any means. I want what I want when I want it. To me, waiting means sitting idly hoping something will happen. It means putting my life on hold until that happens, hoping and praying it does happen. So imagine my disdain and perplexity when I read last night, "those who WAIT upon the LORD shall renew their strength..." It got the wheels in my head turning.

So what exactly does that mean? How do I wait upon the LORD? It struck me as a rather curious phrase. "Wait for Him to do what? So I've got to sit here and wait until He decides to do something? oh great, a day is as a thousand years with Him... this could take forever!" Something about that phrase kept nagging me over and over. So I went to wwww.blueletterbible.org and looked up the scripture. I read it again. "Nope, still doesn't make sense." So I began digging around in the concordance and lexicons, etc. I came across the Hebrew word for WAIT is qavah. "Okay, now we're getting somewhere." It literally means, "to wait, look for, hope, expect; to wait or look eagerly for; to lie in wait for; to wait for, linger for."

Waiting is not passive, I discovered. Waiting is aggressive. When you are waiting for someone, you are expecting they will show up. You are looking for them. You are calling them to find out where they are. You are hoping to see them. You are looking forward to your encounter with them. You are lingering and eagerly looking for them. You are not sitting idly by passively hoping they'll show up. You are aggressively pursuing the notion that they will show up.

So to WAIT on the LORD means to seek Him. It means expecting Him. And when He does show up, His presence is so refreshing and rewarding that it strengthens the weary soul. But a person who is waiting must remain in the place where the one being waited for will show up. They are to remain there until He shows up. If they do not remain and wait, they will miss His arrival. Therefore, we cannot wait without expectancy. Waiting without expectancy of something happening is not waiting at all. It is a mundane passive approach of disbelief, in which we walk away sorrowful that our Guest did not show up; never mind the fact we did not believe He would show up and we relocated to another location.

Waiting is proactive. According to Joyce Meyer, we spend 80% of our lives waiting for something; we may as well get used to it. So I will wait expectantly. I will wait and eagerly look for His arrival. And I won't leave until He makes His Presence known. I will not sit idly by, but I will aggressively wait.