Lectio
“A brother asked Abba Sisoes, ‘What am I to do?’ He said to him: ‘What you need is a great deal of silence and humility. For it is written: “Blessed are those who wait for him” (Is. 30.18) for thus they are able to stand.’”
— Abba Sisoes, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers
Meditatio
Much of the spiritual journey is spent waiting for and with God, as God moves slowly and invites us to be still and to trust in His purpose, His plan, and His timing. He asks us to be still and to trust that He loves us, that He wants what is best for us, and that He will always provide for us if we let Him. He asks us to be still and to trust that He is God, and that we are not, and that we are His beloved children in whom He is well pleased and for whom He does all things.
But when we fail to trust in the Lord and His timing, whether out of ignorance, impatience, or impudence, and take matters into our own hands like Abraham and Sarah who, rather than waiting for God to fulfill His promise to them, used Hagar to secure by their own hand what God had promised to give from His own hand (Genesis 16), we turn away from His grace and His plan. This is not because His grace is limited or His plans fragile, but because we have refused that which He so freely gives — for nothing, not even our own refusal, can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38–39).
And yet, even when we move away from or ahead of God’s plan, He does not allow our mistakes to go to waste, but rather uses them as an opportunity to show His infinite grace and mercy in our lives. Even after Sarah and Abraham took the timing of God’s promise into their own hands, God did not turn away from Hagar in the wilderness — He found her, saw her, and promised that her son Ishmael too would become a great nation (Genesis 16:10–13). What we try to secure through our own plans and designs, God is already present to before we ever act, for He knows our hearts, and remains present to even after we sin, not because He rewards our rebellion but because He loves us and wills what is best for us, even in spite of ourselves.
The Lord showed this love to Abraham and Sarah when He gave them — not through Hagar, but through Sarah herself — Isaac, the son of the promise (Genesis 21:1–3). Their disobedience did not alter what God had already determined to give. It only delayed, for a time, their own experience of receiving it. And yet it is possible to wait too long to turn back — as Esau, who traded what was his for the sake of a moment’s hunger (Genesis 25:29–34), discovered. He later sought to reclaim it with tears, but found no place left to receive it (Hebrews 12:16–17). And so we must be diligent in our patience for what the Lord wishes to give us, which is Himself, revealed slowly in all things, over time.
This type of patience requires humility, the type of humility that only grace can give, but which we must desire to receive. Through this humble patience, we learn to remain silent when we would prefer to grumble, trusting that what God holds for us is greater than anything we could grasp for ourselves, and that He will provide what we need and most deeply long for in His time, not because He withholds His gifts, but because His gifts are eternal and, therefore, dispensed outside of our concept of time. What feels like waiting to us, therefore, is merely a matter of our finite perceptions clashing with His infinite reality, and the sooner we can align our desires with His will, the less waiting will feel like waiting and will, instead, feel like receiving.
Oratio
Eternity Now
draw me into eternity
now
the eternal now
not in my time
but Yours
not my will
but Yours
but I want it now
I want it all now
and that is why I miss it
that is why I miss You
revealing eternity to me
now
revealing Yourself to me
now
in this eternal now
that I run away from
in pursuit of eternity
now
Contemplatio
Set down, for a moment, everything you are trying to secure on your own. What He wills for you, He will give — not on your clock, but in His eternal now. Hold this in stillness, withholding nothing, and let Him move as He will.
Related Scripture
“The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”
— Lamentations 3:25-26 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Lectio Divina: Slow Work Of God, which turns to Teilhard de Chardin’s invitation to trust the slow, hidden work of God, offering a quieter companion to this post’s meditation on waiting and God’s timing.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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