The LONG WAIT

Never in my life had I waited for so long for anyone. Not for even YY (thank God!). It was almost like in the scene of some Korean drama, except that this time it was a girl waiting for another girl..

With my tummy rumbling and my head heavy, the one and a half hours wait at the LRT station felt somewhat like eternity.

Before I start making this sister feel worse than she already does, I would like to say that God turned it out for something good. The wait was full of lessons that I guess God wanted to teach me.

For one, it showed me my flaws clearly. (i) My impatience. While I was reading a godly book (ironically it was called Driven by Eternity), I was tapping my fingers and toes impatiently as if to hurry her up. (ii) My fear of the unknown. I didn’t like the idea of not knowing where she was and what exact time she was arriving. “I am reaching soon” wasn’t good enough. (iii) My easily irritability. In my mind I was giving her a lecture about learning to be punctual, keeping deadlines, being unselfish, and thinking about others, etc, etc.

Then suddenly while all these emotions were rising up inside of me, a still small voice said “You call this sacrifice? You call this waiting??”

There in the car, I learnt about sacrifice. God’s sacrifice. Sacrifice means giving up, forgoing, forfeiting, letting go, surrendering something. God gave up His One and Only Son. Our heavenly Father surrendered His Son to save us. Jesus had to forgo heaven and all His power and glory. Jesus forfeited His all, His life and went to hell for our sakes. Now THAT is sacrifice.

God has been waiting.. and waiting.. and waiting.. not passively, but actively seeking.. for the lost to know Him and experience His love and grace.

God has been waiting.. and waiting.. for the backslidden to come back into His embrace.

God has been waiting.. and waiting.. delaying His judgments and His eternal punishments. That NONE may perish. Now THAT is waiting.

I couldn’t never measure up. After one and a half hours, I had to call to say I was way too tired and hungry to wait any longer. I left feeling bad, she felt bad too.. but we both learnt some powerful lessons. (*I asked her to read mine in this blog)

When i reached home, I was reflecting on it over my maggi noodles, and I realize that I learnt far more from my wait than I would had I been at home in the comfort of my sofa. I guess God knew better. He made the lessons in the book come alive.

Waiting has now taken a new meaning for me.