Day 3665 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

James 5:7 NIV

The weight of the wait.

There seems, as life grows toward wherever life goes, this growing knowing that the waiting is weighing a worth of wonder as to whether whatever may be good enough as measured always against the unseen uncertainty of the perhaps better still. And I think that it’s that stillness that finds us so often afraid as we wait for whatever more may be in store that seems to most a horrible bore as borne within the moment in which we’re at present already surrounded with what seems a perfect plenty.

And it’s, to us, this supposed plenty already perfected that exists as if only to remind of the more we could have right now as opposed to later on if we’d just do as our impatience would prefer as present.

For within this world there is undeniably a great many good enoughs and even quite a few pretty greats. But that’s where it begins to find this weighing, this life spent mostly in waiting. It’s found within the feeling that what we want is rather a needing, freeing us to the feeding us of whatever it is that we suddenly cannot see our lives lived without. And again, being now found within this surround of the substance of even what most others are living as if is more than enough, it then seems easy enough to see that such plenty is perhaps perfect for us too.

Thus we hate the wait.

Because when given the choice, as daily we are, between having now or hoping later, the now is the plow most likely to win our hand in what is a marriage to a moment as opposed to those many more we’re not living quite yet. We just don’t really know what to do with yet as we don’t really know when yet will arrive. Is it later today? Will yet be here by this weekend? Does yet come around more often come summertime? It yet an every other year type of fear? When will yet be here?

We don’t know. Because the truth is that life isn’t lived within the luxury of our knowing everything. And as much as this may offend or seem to contend against our plans for what we pretend to believe is a picture perfect scene, when in truth is that every such photo but a moment at most, what then can we know what is in fact best? How much of what was at once considered best by us been since left by us for what has already proven better? And yet, despite the normalcy of such a sea of certainty as won within the past, it seems still that we scorn the still as we’d still rather move toward something.

Doesn’t even seem to matter what, just so long as we don’t start feeling as if we’re nothing.

Which is a fear we’ve all found and felt formed within prior waitings for wantings that may or may never have ever come. And indeed, now it does seem as if we do know for truth that a hope deferred doth indeed distress the heart in what is a sickness so selfish that it’s no surprise that still we live at first through eyes allowed to lead our lives and instruct our minds as to the meaning of our time and how it’s best spent upon the expedient. Yes, around here the quicker the better, right?

Ironically, that idea is one that seems to have survived our drive into what is called adulthood. Truth is that a lot has happened since our younger years. A great many changes have taken place, many of which due to chances we’ve chased. But one of the more heartbreaking realizations is that of all we’ve lost, left behind, learned otherwise or just gave up on, there have been a few detriments that have managed to hang on and stick around. And of all we’ve lost along the lane to where we lay today in look for lust of what’s mostly dust, I contend that what may cause more harm are the things from our childish ways that have survived into these adult days.

Namely our impatience.

See, I’m sure you’ll remember it well, but as kids we would set our sights on something we’d like and suddenly it would seem as if our lives weren’t worth living without this toy or piece of candy we suddenly found ourselves loving as much if not more than life itself, as unrealized then as the gift it remains. And, something I know we can all remember, we’d even devolve into throw fits and fists should we be refused this morsel of the more we were simply then all of the sudden all but aching and breaking for.

But as we grow we start to learn little by little these little bits at a time as to why our parents may have declined our many delights and desires. We learn that candy isn’t really a food group and, that despite the delight, it has some health-wise downsides. We learn that toys are mere trinkets that tarnish or end up in the trash, and thus are things we can actually survive without having. We learn that staying up all night isn’t conducive to top-notch productivity the next day, and truth be told, it just gets harder to stay awake!

We learn that staring a screen for hours on end really does bother your eyes, and that while it may not melt your brain, with the junk called “entertainment” these days, well, just the same. We learn that friends are often but future strangers waiting to walk away. We learn that things done in cartoons don’t really translate to real life. We realize that perhaps some of our dreams were maybe for things that, while arguably still possible, probably not logical. I mean, I grew up on Peter Pan and Ninja Turtles.

Alas piracy is frowned upon and rolling around town with a pair of nunchucks might bring about a talk with the cops insisted upon by probably more than a few concerned citizens. Or maybe it’s the colorful bandana worn around the eyes. Why so much judgement?

Anyway, back to the point. And that is that while we learn a great many productive lessons that allow us to leave behind some of our lesser prerogatives, truth is that all of these are lessons left only learned in part it seems as while we sadly do we leave behind some good things, sadly too it seems that we manage to retain some of those that we’d be better to leave behind as soon as we can. And among those that we should have left or lost by now, one that’s again sadly managed to hang on is our impatience.

We just hate the wait. It’s a matter measured in that plenty that’s present that we talked about above. It’s having to sit while the others run and play and have the things and get the way that they want life to be. It’s having to see all these things that we want for ourselves won by others instead. It’s knowing that we could have or do or see or be whatever we want to, and watching the same plenty of others do. It’s walking amongst a way of life in which impatience wins the day more time than not as we all give in to lesser desires simply for the sake of satiating our selfish fires lit inside hearts still deceptive above all.

Indeed, waiting for things in life never gets easier. In fact, as pride abides and swells inside, our impatience tends to get worse, growing into an almost impetuous if not tempestuous anger we’re more than ready to wield whenever we hear “no” or that equally dreaded “not yet”. Yes, we grow into what’s such a greed for all that’s seen that we feed upon the seed sown inside that scene and seem to assume that our lives are doomed should we not have, hold, hear or do whatever it is that we suddenly want to.

And this becomes quite the issue in regard to faith as faith is a matter often measured in the wait. And as it contends with the arrogance within, it almost wins this weight of wonder as won within why we can’t just have our way in every way in regard to everything every day.

But how much should having to wait be allowed to weigh?

Should something such as patience, still a virtue all its own, should such a thing be seen so thin as to inspire anger or frustration within? Should our having to trust really prove a mettle that rusts should that in which we hope be held a little further ahead, just a little out of reach? Should God saying that dreaded “no” or “not yet” be allowed to turn a life on its head and leave us living as if we’d rather be dead? Is what we want not but a matter made meaningful in that moment alone?

Again, how many things have we wanted more than life itself only to now walk by them sitting on the shelf and feel nothing at all?

Do we not see the wealth then won within the wait now that life is more often lived that way? It’s something my parents always taught me when I was kid, granted, sometimes to my learning it quite begrudgingly. But it’s that when you come upon this idea that you’ve found something you want, wait. Even if just a day or a week, wait. If you still want whatever it is by then, then okay, perhaps it has a point or a use. But in truth it’s the waiting that wins us the wealth of thinking things through. It allows us to measure the difference and distance designed between want and need.

And this is a very important lesson to learn in life.

Because reality is that we can’t always get what we want, and correspondingly, we also often take for granted the continued provision of our needs as met daily in God’s goodness. And it seems this ability to overlook His work that becomes something that stains our eyes even more. It in fact becomes something that leaves us all but unwilling to wait because we cannot seem to see the so much more that He has still in store as won within what all is waiting behind what’s becoming an open door unto the other shore of something so amazing that not much here seems worth anything anymore.

And that’s a sad sight to still assume always unseen. But we so often do just because of the weight of the wait as won within our wars waged for want and wish rather than waiting for what we couldn’t possibly imagine even possible at present. But yet that’s the question as asked of me by my parents every time I wanted something. Will it matter as much as it seems to now beyond this moment presently present in which it may seem to matter more than anything else? Or will this object of affection lose its inflection and be deemed worth less later on?

See, I’m finding that we should always live as if the best is still to come, and in this not remain so dumb as to demand our best be held here and now. Because what’s here and now is but everything that is itself waiting to be lost or left behind. And thus we find that all of life up to and including the entirety found within it, it’s all but a moment and often nothing more. For all that’s here, all that we see, all that we do, all that we desire and conspire to consider worth the time we give away to not having to wait, it’s all limited by time itself.

And yet we live, oddly enough, so impatiently that we do not have that ability to number our days.

We rather live to number our things.

And it’s because of this that we hate having to wait. Because there are always more things to want, to have, to do, to be. This world is filled with so much plenty that we cannot seem to see anything that could mean anything more. Because we’ve only known only this shore. And having become so sporadic and impatient and greedy and gluttonous, so too have we become unable to believe in the better waiting for us upon the other. No, anymore we’ll settle for whatever so long as it distracts from our living a life spent waiting always for something else.

But what I fear, as found within what I’ve often felt, is that our impatience only seems to inspire inside of us this detraction of what is a life’s direction. Because we open ourselves up to being angry or disappointed whenever we don’t get whatever it is that we want within the timeframe we’ve assigned to this thing that’s overtaken our mind. All we can see is the outcome as something so joyous and fulfilling that we detest the time spent waiting to get there.

Much like how we feel the rain a pain as it pours upon our planned parades.

Yet things don’t grow without it. Crops are not able to be harvested without the work put into planting what we know up front will be a bounty won only within the waiting for it to grow and mature and reach its fullest potential. See, we’ve lost our understanding and thus too our appreciation of potential. We just don’t have the patience for it anymore. And so we don’t plant much anymore. We don’t hope much anymore. We don’t consider things anymore. We just know only to want and whine.

But friends, is it worth our later to lose our minds for what are likely only things that will be left behind? Is it not better to wait for what so often proves better anyway? See, like kids who assume candy holds no consequence, we still sometimes live as if always being in a hurry doesn’t either. But how many better things have we missed along the way to what often feels at best good enough? And does not the fact that we can never know those many might have beens prove now proof of the importance of patience?

At least that given long enough to weigh the possible consequences?

Because while we may know a life lived only to hurry, and thus have no ability to imagine anything better than all of this whatever that’s waiting around us to be wanted by us as soon as we can make that concession, is a life lived conceding to the desires of a moment truly a life able to offer the fullness of that for which we cannot even dream at present?

Indeed, since when is the promise of what’s eternally best not worth the weight of the wait that’s carried along the way? For sure, it may sting to sometimes not get the things we allow ourselves to desire whilst inside this world on fire for such folly and failure to find the more that’s promised us at the very first step, first breath taken upon eternity’s shore. But that which stings doesn’t always destroy. And so too sometimes it’s just best to wait through our wants in order to learn for sure which of them would have been safe, and which more wouldn’t have.

Alas we often, because of impatience, only learn this kind of lesson in hindsight and the regret it grows. It just seems that God’s called us to sow a different crop that yields a far different harvest. And while it may take some time and we might miss out on some seemingly enjoyable or exciting things along the way, that He died for us to have the gift of everlasting life seems to say that it’s worth the rain, the pain, the plain, the plane of patience as won within the weight of waiting.

Yes, He took that cross for us in what was sowing of a harvest of hope that He’s had for us since the beginning of time. Surely we can give Him a few years to ensure that both the promise, yes, but so too our potential is fully ready.

And while it may be hard for we who are patients of impatience to learn to love the providence of patience, knowing what waits for us at the end of this life should be more than enough of a reason to wait for it in return. Because while having a lot of good enough is pretty good, having all of better is undeniably better still. Because it’s promised us for all of forever.

Thus it seems but yet another choice: Live for plenty of what seems at present more than plenty? Or wait for what we cannot see but thus too cannot prove any limit to? Indeed, it all just seems to come down to our embracing of the weighing of the waiting.

But forever seems like plenty worth waiting for.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold