“Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.” (Ecclesiastes 7:8)
Life rarely moves at the pace we’d like it to. We’re forced to wait at many a light when we’d rather be on our way. The night drags on and we’re in the dark far longer than we hoped to be. Our stint in the wilderness is getting old and our “coming out party” is way overdue. In so many ways, we would like life to hurry up so we can get on with it. But for the time being, God has us in the “waiting room,” for reasons we struggle at times to understand.
If we were of the world we could easily get to work to speed things up. But wearing the Lord’s yoke means moving in concert with Him. When He moves, we move; when He stops, we stop. We have learned by experience that our biggest blunders happened when we were off and running without Him; or paralyzed with fear when He called us to act. So when circumstances conspire to constrain us we are not apt to bust a door down out of impatience; or melt under a spirit of fear. The voice of the Lord must be louder than our situation or our emotional reaction to it. We enquire: “Lord, what are You doing in this? What are You wanting me to do?” Here is where we let patience have her perfect work. Here is where we let God arise instead of arising in our own spirit.
God has great and sweet things awaiting the patient in spirit. “For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.” (Isa. 64:4) But what the Lord does in us while we wait is far greater than what He does for us when the wait is over. Blessed are those who have learned obedience through the things they’ve suffered, and gained patience through the agony of waiting.