GRACE WHILE WE WAIT (May 8, 2020)

If red lights linger more than 60 seconds, we blame bureaucrats who don’t understand real-world traffic patterns. If checkout lines at the local market are 10 shoppers deep, we grumble at inattentive managers who make us needlessly wait. When wounds won’t heal and pain endures, we wonder why God doesn’t act as quickly as we need, or chooses not to intervene. We weren’t wired to wait, we say, even though each day, each week, requires we do more of it. It takes great grace to learn to wait. We’ve made our plans as though each traffic light will always be green, each errand will flow seamlessly, each scar will quickly disappear. We count the hours we spend waiting as something less than fully living—an exasperating gray zone between what we’ve imagined and when we think it should occur. But waiting well is time in grace, a window to reflect on God’s long, unfolding calendar where “in everything God works for good with those who love Him” (Rom 8:28). The same grace that waited patiently for us to come home, through all our sins and misadventures, now holds us as we wait the end of separation, loss, and pain. “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psa 90:12). Grace waits. And so do grace-filled people. So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

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