Waiting... Part 1
As part of my morning quiet time I've started looking at my journal from last year, mostly so I can see where I was then compared to where I am now - hopefully with positive results! Today I was reading my journal from last year and found that what I had written then seemed to be directed to me now... and I think it's something a lot of people can relate to.
What prompted this particular journal entry was a review of the story of the first Christmas as told in the first two chapters of Luke - specifically the stories of Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary and Simeon. For those who need a brief recap:
Zechariah and Elizabeth were an old couple past their years for childbearing yet an angel of the Lord came to Zechariah and promised he'd have a son... that son grew up to be John the Baptist. Mary was a virgin who was told by an angel of the Lord that she'd have a child born of God... that son grew up to be Jesus. Simeon was a devout man who was told by God that he wouldn't die before he saw the Lord's Christ... and he was present in the temple courts when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus. (Luke 1:5 - 2:35)
The first thing that's notably similar in all of these situations is that the main figures are waiting. Waiting's not a new concept - we all wait for one thing or another every day. We wait for the water to get hot in the shower, we wait for the light to turn green when we're late for work and we wait for the waiter to bring us the bill.
The Bible's also littered with stories of waiting. From Abraham going to a foreign country to Noah sitting in the ark looking for land to Moses tending sheep for 40 years before he went to the burning bush. What gives me pause is that all of these people were promised something from God - so they were just left to wait until the promise was eventually fulfilled.
But I'm not so different.
Even before I was born, God made a promise and he sealed it in blood. He's promised never to leave me or forsake me... and that one day I would live in Paradise with Him. Now I just have to wait... for the promise to be fulfilled.
The significance of this is that I'm not waiting to go from nothing to something... despite the feeling that I'm alone and forgotten, the reality is that as soon as God makes a promise things are no longer "nothing." God's spoken and changed that nothing into something.
Now I'm waiting to go from something to something greater!
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