Hurry Up and Wait

Psalm 118:5-6 "In my distress I prayed to the Lord, and the Lord answered me and set me free. The Lord is for me, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?" NLT

Hurry Up and Wait

In the military life, one often spends a lot of time waiting.  Especially waiting in line. Lines for the commissary, lines for the ID card facility, lines for the clinics. It is not unheard of to spend 3 or 4 hours a day waiting in lines. The phrase hurry up and wait is heard frequently. After 30 years, I became quite used to waiting. You take a book, write letters, read the signs around the room. You aren’t allowed to talk on your cell phone (which I consider the height of rudeness anyway) but you can play games on your phone(sound off of course). It is just a part of the military lifestyle.

In my personal life however, I am often impatient with being made to wait. I want things to happen faster. Results to come quicker. Words to fly from my brain to paper. I get up in the morning with the idea that I will conquer everything on my to do list. I plan and plot, keep paper and pen beside me at all times, putting sticky notes on everything. What eventually ends up happening is that I need a sticky note to remind me to read my sticky notes. I spend more time planning to get things done than actually getting them done.  Does that sound like something you can relate to?

So what do waiting and disorganization have in common? Many times God has given us the answer to our prayer yet we can not see past the clutter in our lives to make that answer become reality. We say we have to wait to go on that mission trip until we have more money while we wander the aisles of DSW or order another Venti mocha. We say we have to wait to write that note to our old friend because we want to get prettier note paper or we make a trip to the superstore and get everything but a card! We say we have to wait to serve at church because we just don’t know what our schedule is that far in advance. We say we have to wait…and wait…and wait.

It often times isn’t that we are waiting on God but that He is waiting on us! Waiting on us to free our minds and our lives of all the excess clutter and disorganization.  Glynnis Whitwer of Proverbs 31 ministries is doing a study called “Clutter Free”. click here to sign up or go to www.glynniswhitwer.com For 15 days she will be posting ways to help us find our way out of the clutter starting with the clutter in our minds. We won’t have to wait for things to get organized. We can actually GET organized. I know, I know. Am I kidding? One more study to add to your already hectic day! But I promise you that this is soooooo simple. Just a quick email to your inbox or just a quick read on her blog. Nothing long, no pages of homework, no book to buy. Just a simple way to let God work miracles in your life, freeing you up to stop WAITING!

Dearest Father God, It’s us. Your disorganized children. We are tired of waiting and we now realize that it’s our fault! Help us organize our thoughts, our lives, our very souls so that we can be free to go out and do your will. Cover us with grace and mercy. Help us to learn to laugh today Lord. Bring a smile to our hearts. We are so very glad to be the children of such an awesome Father! We love You so much. In the name of our Brother, Christ Jesus, Amen