I can still picture the commercial. Every December it would come on television, the Time-Life Treasury of Christmas, a two-CD set promising the best of the best of the season’s favorites. This was long before anything could be streamed or downloaded; if you wanted the music, you waited for the mail truck. I wanted that set badly and couldn’t justify the cost, so I waited. Then one night at a church member’s Christmas party, there it was, playing through their speakers. Months later I finally ordered my own copy, and I have loved those songs ever since. These days, of course, every one of those recordings is a single tap away on my phone, no waiting required.
That’s the world we live in now. We’re an “I want it my way and I want it now” culture. Amazon promises next-day delivery, and in some places, delivery within a few hours. We stream instead of tuning in at a broadcast time. We track our pizza, our package, our rideshare driver, watching the little icon move closer in real time. Waiting has become something we engineer out of daily life whenever we can. I understand the impulse, I feel it too, but understanding it doesn’t mean I prefer it.
And yet some of life’s greatest items simply refuse to be rushed. Healing. Grief. Growth. Trust. Character. God’s promises. None of these arrive on a next-day delivery schedule, no matter how badly we want them to. Paul reminds us that the Christian life is lived in that uncomfortable in-between space, the space between what God has already accomplished and what we have not yet fully experienced. Scripture puts it this way:
Brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ— if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
—Romans 8:12-251
Our world trains us to avoid waiting at nearly any cost, while God so often uses waiting to form us. Hope, by its very nature, requires waiting. You cannot hope for something you already hold in your hand. My pastor spoke this past Sunday about the “already, but not yet,” and this reminder of a familiar phrase has stayed with me all week. As followers of Christ, we live inside that tension. The spiritual blessings are already ours, sealed and secured, yet the full enjoyment of them has not yet come to complete fruition. We carry both truths at once.
This week alone, several close friends of mine have lost family members. Others are living with new diagnoses, or with the slow, wearying grind of health issues that won’t resolve. I wish every one of them could simply step fully into their complete “already” right now. But that’s not how this works. Christ has already secured our salvation, already made us God’s children, already given us His Spirit, yet we still wait for the day when every tear is wiped away and every broken thing is made whole. Waiting is not a sign that God has forgotten us. More often, it can be the very place where He teaches us to trust what He has promised more than what we can presently see. Our hope doesn’t rest on having every answer today, but on knowing that the One who began this good work will one day bring it to completion.
So this week, when impatience or discouragement creeps in over something still unresolved, pause and simply pray: “Abba, Father, help me trust You while I wait.” Then take one small moment each day to thank God for a sign of His faithfulness, letting that quiet act of gratitude strengthen your hope in what is still to come.
May the God who has already called you His beloved child fill your heart with quiet confidence as you wait upon Him. And may His Spirit sustain you with hope, reminding you that His promises are always worth the wait.
Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
—Book of Common Prayer2
Luke Gambill 