Busy Waiting

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,

and in his word I put my hope.

I wait for the Lord

more than watchmen wait for the morning,

more than watchmen wait for the morning. Psalm 130:5-6 NIV

I am waiting these days. But I am not sitting quietly, hands folded in my lap, feet firmly placed on the floor. It is tempting since my calendar appears to be relatively empty day after day after day – interrupted with prayer penciled in on Tuesdays, Mary Hall Freedom Village on Fridays, and church on Sundays. Perhaps that doesn't sound empty – but for me, it stretches out like a calm reflective sea. But it is an illusion.

Because the plumbers are here in Greenville in both bathrooms and the water is off and rumor has it they will return again next week when the replacement diverter for the 70-year-old plumbing arrives. The front yard is carpeted in their wheat straw and hopeful grass seeds from replacing piping for the gray water the week before. They did things differently in the 1950s out in the country. Old houses have old problems, and we mean to solve many of them in this quiet month of August.

I just looked back and realized I left you hanging in May as we swept forward intent and ready to sell this childhood home of mine. Perhaps I explain by saying, "There was some undone paperwork that delayed the sale." The offer that was too good to be true actually was. Proving to me once again there is good reason for those tried-and-true proverbial sayings. So, God has given me the desire of my heart – which was to have just one more summer here.

In the meantime, the paperwork from the roofing estimate is spread across Nancy’s vintage Formica table waiting for the first check from the insurance company which arrived today. The lawyers are on hold waiting for the final notarized documents to arrive. The realtor is waiting for Labor Day to come and go and then the sign will go up in the yard and our doors will be open again to happy home hunters. We are all busy waiting. Busy.

I find it perfectly fitting that a few weeks ago I taught on waiting for the king to arrive. I guess it should be the capital 'K' King. Those stories Jesus told can be found in chapters 18 and 19 of Luke – especially poignant is Luke 19:11-27 – the story of the ‘nobleman who went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return’. Jesus had arrived as a humble nobleman declaring the Kingdom of God (or Heaven) had come near, but it was hard to comprehend because those sons and daughters of Abraham knew nothing of glorious kingdoms in their enemy-occupied dusty land– any more than we do in our own oddly occupied land. Whether we are living in the ancient once-great Israel or the current once-great America, I think the message is probably the same; the Kingdom is near, so stay awake, keep your lamp burning, and listen for the Master’s knock upon the door – or more likely, the trumpet blast of His accompanying angels.

“Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him.” Luke 12:35-36

“Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.” Matthew 24:30-31

I live in my little bubble of words and visuals – and this is the visual that bounces around in my mind and lives in a frame on my desk. The camera is focused on the passenger side mirror outside the car window. Out of focus in the background, the desert red landscape of Utah reaches the blue-sky horizon. Within the frame of the mirror, a long-haired brindle dog with a white blaze named Maybelle slightly opens her mouth in what appears to be a smile, the wind pushing against her face and glorious mane. The warning printed in all caps at the bottom of the mirror reads: "Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear”. It cracks me up. The ‘object’ is in the seat right behind me, less than 12” away.

Maybe this was what Jesus was saying: The Kingdom of God has come near – it may be closer than it appears. It may be right behind you.

So don’t delay. You may be waiting. But be busy waiting. There is lots still left to do. We who call ourselves servants of the Most High God have been given a coin. The nobleman has placed it in our hand. We are meant to invest it, to use it, to multiply it for the returning King. I ask you, as I ask myself, what does that look like?

I have been given much; therefore, much is expected of me by the nobleman who is away in the far country.

As I hold these promises of a Kingdom that has come near, I know they ring true when I believe them enough to walk in them. If the coin I hold is to write about God's Words, then I must. If the coin I hold is to sit with broken women who have lived in the darkness of homelessness and addiction; to touch them and listen to them and encourage them and receive their embrace, then I must. If the coin I hold is to donate financially to ministries that bring light into neighborhoods in foreign lands where their daughters are sold into slavery at 12 or dark nations where young men are murdered by their own families for speaking Jesus, then I must. Or if my coin is to simply sit and pray with other women for a lost and dying nation, then I must.

Or if the coin I hold is to engage the plumbers and the painters and the flooring and roofing experts to be a good steward of the precious home and pool and beautiful land our parents entrusted us, then I must.

All of these are the small things, the one coin, the one mina I have been given and will be held responsible for multiplying. For carefully, thoughtfully multiplying as each one expands beyond my little world. Each morning I must ask myself, am I busy preparing for the King’s return? Am I busy in my waiting?

Perhaps this song has little to do with working and waiting, but I can’t stop playing it over and over like a child with a new song!

There's honey in the rock

Purpose in Your Plan

Power in the blood

Healing in Your hands

Started flowing when You said it is done

Jesus, who You are is enough

There's honey in the rock

Honey in the Rock Brooke Ligertwood (with Brandon Lake)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vpuNsZxmp

JesusGeorgia TannerAugust 11, 2023Comment