WAITING

What we are waiting for, relying on his promises, is the new heavens and new earth, where uprightness will be at home.

--2 Peter 3:13 (New Jerusalem Bible)

   What am I waiting for? If one is waiting, one must expect something to happen. It may be for something hoped for or something dreaded. I have waited for biopsy results, our income tax refund, to go home from the hospital, and while five children were born.

I often wait for the traffic light to change, for phone calls or emails from our children, for the computer to come on or download some data. When traveling, I wait to board the plane, wait for the takeoff and then wait for the landing. Sometimes it seems I hurry up to wait. The waiting seems interminable and I must admit I am not very patient.

   These examples are not the kind of “waiting” to be considered now. As I thought about waiting in this season, I wondered, “Who is waiting, me or God?” I am not waiting for Jesus, I have found him; or more correctly, He has found me. Just maybe, God is waiting for me to “put my money where my mouth is.” God is patiently (I hope) waiting for me to become more like the Jesus I claim to know. But God is not waiting idly. God works on me, using all of you in this church, to encourage me to become more like I ought to be. So I’m not waiting for God. God is waiting for me.

   But, in the meantime, I am waiting as the writer of 2 Peter, for the time when uprightness, justice and peace will be at home on this planet. I think God is waiting for that also.

Prayer

   Dear God, I earnestly wait for the day that peace will reign and war will be history. I pray that our leaders will find the will and the courage to be a peace-seeking example for the rest of the world. Amen.

                                                                 --Jack Hotsenpiller