Stay Awake: Waiting vs. Demanding.

Waiting… In a normal week.

Hot water in shower,Coffee to brew,Red light,Email,Drive through,Money teller,Grocery line,Post office,Next post,Microwave,Movie line,Car to warm up,Windshield to defrost,Clothes to dry,Gas tank to fill up,Rush hour,Download,Next I phone,Transitions in class,Alarm to go off,Bread to rise,For a next soccer game.

16th birthday,Driver license,Car,Date,Vote,Graduate,Marry/honeymoon,Intercourse,Baby/family,Career,

Illness to heal,Major trip,Own home,Grandkids,Heaven,Jesus to return and.......

Waiting is really hard and really formative. You know when you are in a larger airport, they have those sections of floor in long walkways in between terminals that are like a flat escalator. You step on them and they move you faster than you could normally walk by yourself. I call them people movers. I think that waiting is a people mover without us really thinking much about it. Waiting comprises a really big portion of our lives without us really giving thought to it. And then when we do actually think about what it is like to have to wait, we realize that it is this pretty big thing for us, many times really hard. And time is moving forward while we're waiting.

This is what I have noticed along the way. Waiting doesn't come naturally. Demanding does. If my computer doesn't connect to wifi quick enough, I'm ready to pull a knife and hurt someone. This is not the greatest indicator of my interior world. What happens when slow wifi becomes someone suffering with a long standing illness that doesn't have a known cure. Demanding quick internet connection. Demanding healing or relief or comfort. Waiting is really hard. Waiting is really formative.

"I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord." Those words are found in the bible book of Psalms in chapter 27, verses 13 and 14. Despair and waiting keep pretty good company at times. It seems like there is some kind of battle associated with waiting and connection with Jesus.

So, I was just about to try to make some "blog worthy" point using Psalm 106 and the children of Israel "not waiting for the counsel of the Lord". The bible book of Psalms chapter 106 verses 6 through 15 are worth your attention. The red sea story is compelling. The point that I was going to try to write about seems like it's fading and something else seems to be gaining momentum inside of me.

It's this. This isn't cute. It's critical.

While this battle of demanding vs. waiting is going on inside of us and we happen to be paying attention to the waiting that IS happening with us....cry out to the Lord while you're waiting. Cry out to Him. But I might say,"I don't really cry out about much of anything. It's a little weird. Perhaps a bit fanatical......except when I'm yelling for Trey at his soccer game....or when I'm watching the Vols.....or when someone doesn't get going quick enough when the light turns green.....oh yeah. I do cry out don't I?"

I cry out selectively. Damon, cry out intentionally....cry out to the Lord while you're waiting for Him to transform you in the midst of the waiting. Cry out to the Lord when He graciously shows you your demanding heart in all its bloody brilliance. Cry out to the Lord. He receives our cries. I really believe He does.

I close with these words from Charles Haddon Spurgeon as I think about crying out to the Lord. Is it really worth crying out?

"What fulness there is in Him to make up all you can lose for him; what refreshments there are in Him to sweeten all you can suffer for Him. What fulness! You may as well doubt that all the waters of the ocean cannot fill a spoon, as that the divine fulness cannot be enough to you, if you should have nothing left in this world; for all the waters that cover the sea are not so much as a spoonful, compared with the boundless and infinite fulness of all sufficiency. What refreshments in Him! One drop of divine sweetness is enough to make one in the very agony of the cruellest death to cry out with joy, "The bitterness of death is past." Now in him there are not only drops, but rivers; not a scanty sprinkling, but an infinite fulness."

All this available as we wait for the Lord, as we cry out to Him.

While we wait.......

there's more.