Waiting is a shared human experience. It is an occurrence with which every foster parent is very familiar. If you or someone you or someone you have walked alongside has been involved in the foster care process, you know the familiarity of waiting comes with the territory in nearly every step of the process. It is also the universal experience of humans at varied points in life, and waiting does not come naturally. Over my foster care journey I have experiences numerous seasons and phases of waiting.
As Christians, we often desire clear, purposeful, active service for God. That is not always what God calls us to though. During a time of much uncertainty and waiting on God’s leading, I was reminded by a dear friend in Christ that God’s will for me is not something out in future to be attained, but rather present faithfulness to what was in front of me. Activity, or often over-activity, can lead us to have a false sense of success in our Christian life. We tend to value what we can accomplish – checking off our good Christian to-do list as we go. We diminish the ordinary and mundane tasks and choices that are what really make up our lives.
The excerpt from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings captures our role so well in not seeking to master the world but to do what we can do where we are put for the time we are here to push back on evil. Scripture how we view our time in Ephesians by saying, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5: 15-16).
Waiting is not wasted. It can often feel passive, as if things are happening to you rather than you making things happen. But waiting isn’t be passivity awaiting action. Rather, it is a time we can pursue knowing and growing in our relationship with God. It is being faithful in the roles and duties in which God has currently set us. It can also be a time of preparation for where we anticipate God seems to be leading us next. All of this is undergirded with trust in the perfect timing and wisdom of God. I have heard it said, “If I had all the power of God I would change everything. If I had all the wisdom of God, I would change nothing.”