A Season of Waiting

Simeon and Jesus

photo credit

And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.

And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ.

So he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law, he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said:

Lord, now You are letting Your servant
depart in peace,
According to Your word;
For my eyes have seen Your salvation
Which You have prepared
before the face of all peoples;
A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles,
And the glory of Your people Israel."

And Joseph and His mother marveled at those things which were spoken of Him.

Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother,

"Behold, this Child is destined
for the fall and rising of many in Israel,
and for a sign which will be spoken against
(yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also),
that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed."

- Luke 2:25-35

Today is the last Sunday of Advent.

Only eleven days remain before the year 2009 comes to a close.

The past days, I have been savoring the quiet peace and rest here at home.

I have been attending Christmas parties almost every night this week. And going to the mall to pick up a few more gifts that I still needed to buy. And pruning overgrown bushes in my garden early in the morning.

But there was no sense of urgency, and true to the message that God spoke to my heart a week ago, I have been enjoying His presence and His love.

I have been waiting for God's purposes to unfold.


For my 56th birthday last March, God spoke the word unfolding to my heart.

Like the petals of a flower, waiting for the first light of dawn before it slowly begins to open.

Or the wings of a butterfly that has just come out of its cocoon, slowly unfurling.

There is such a gentleness to this word. It speaks of the kind of person that I want to be: appreciative, understanding, undemanding.

People do not have to measure up to my expectations. I can accept them as they are.

It doesn't mean that I will be a doormat, allowing people to trample, or walk, all over me.

Nor does it mean that I condone mediocrity in others.

Not at all.

It simply means that I look at another person's heart and remember that it is fragile. And that there is always one more thing about the other that I am not aware of.

Oswald Chambers once wrote these words, "Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is with you."

I try to be the best that I can be. And I desire to leave behind a good example for others to follow. But my own experience is not the standard for others.

Let me be kind. Let me not hold on to an offended spirit.

Let me not be wise in my own eyes.

Let me just be a woman of grace, a peacemaker.

By Your grace, Father, let me be a channel of Your peace.

These are the noble thoughts that the word unfolding brings to mind. Undoubtedly God is the One planting these desires in me, that I may continue to pursue them in the coming year.

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Simeon has been on my mind these past months.

I believe it is no coincidence that a blog friend, Matt, included a picture of Simeon with Jesus on his most recent blog post. Or that Pastor Andrew spoke about this man in church this morning.

Somehow the story of Simeon waiting for Jesus in the temple brings up this word, unfolding, in my heart. I don't know why, but it does.


It must be because Simeon lived a long time just waiting to see Jesus. The Messiah had been promised to Israel, and they had waited a long, long time for this promise to be realized.

And with that waiting came the shaping of His character. While he waited for the plans of God to unfold, the gradual unfolding of his inner strength also came about.

Suddenly, a light pierces their darkness...and the Messiah appears.

Don't you just love this Christmas story? It is a story of waiting...

"Now your servant can depart in peace, for my eyes have seen Your salvation."

What faith! What hope!

As I reflect on the story of Simeon, I see a man who knew the purposes of God for his life. Simeon received a revelation from the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he saw the Lord's Christ. He could therefore wait...even if it took a long time.

He knew what he was waiting for!

How this story brings such an encouragement to my heart...

In a previous post I have shared that there are two major themes to my life story: one is the theology of weakness, and the other is the spirituality of waiting.

God is not in a hurry to fulfill His plans, He waits for the right time, the right season.

Waiting is the subtitle of my life story. It is the spirituality of waiting that has shaped me and given definition to much of who I am today.

Through the years God has taught me how to wait actively, that is, to wait with a sense of good things happening. To wait with hope.

I often ask God to transform my heart into one that is always willing to wait for Him. I don't want to go ahead of God, I want to wait for Him. Because I know that a person who waits for God has a tender heart, a kind spirit, a wisdom from above...peaceable... flexible... vulnerable.

I remember the impatience of my younger years. How I hated for my plans to go wrong!

Then God brought me through a season where all of my plans went wrong... and it was in the crucible of waiting that God began to transform my heart.

I used to have the mistaken notion that it was all about me - my dreams, my plans, my family, my home, my job, my career, my ministry, my health... my life.

Ah, then the pain came in, disappointment, difficult relationships, health issues, financial issues...

And these became God's instrument of change in my heart.



Yes, waiting has a way of cleansing us. Helps us to know the true from the false. ..what is of God, and what is of the devil.

In my waiting years, and I'm not really out of it yet, God has shown me the beauty of a heart that waits.

Waiting helps us to sort out our priorities and look at life from the right perspective. In light of eternity we learn to live and wait patiently for what really matters.

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The Advent season is a time of waiting with expectation, preparing our hearts to celebrate the birth of our Savior.

For me, Simeon and Anna are the persons who best represent the season of Advent. They were the ones waiting in the temple for the Messiah. Their spirits immediately recognized Jesus as the Promised One, the "Consolation of Israel," when they saw Him.

The most beautiful thing about waiting is the fact that we are not the only ones waiting.

God is also waiting.

Like the prodigal father of the prodigal son, God is waiting for us to return to Him, to come home to His heart, to His beautiful plans and purposes.

He knows where we've been, what we have been up to, to what great lengths we've gone to quiet the noise inside our hearts, and to silence the condemning voices that will not leave us in peace.

The Father understands that we have been looking for Him in all the wrong places. He knows what the enemy has done to our souls, lying to us, tricking us, deceiving us...

Therefore the Lord will wait,
that He may be gracious to you,
And therefore He will be exalted,
that He may have mercy on you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
Blessed are all those who wait for Him.

- Isaiah 30:18


There is a beautiful ending to our waiting! God the Father Himself is waiting with us...waiting for us to come home.

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The last remaining days of this year will be busy ones for me and my family. As I had already mentioned, my son Worshiper will be getting married on the 28th of this month.

I have prayed for it to be a beautiful ending to a beautiful year, an event where God alone will be honored and given glory.

As I end my post, I want to share how God honored me with a tangible answer to that prayer. I woke up very early yesterday. It was a cool Saturday morning. I went out to the garden and enjoyed the serenity. A gentle breeze was blowing. I had just finished watering the plants when it suddenly began to drizzle.

Then, to my amazement, a beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky. It was a full rainbow, spread across the sky for everyone to see. After a few minutes, a second rainbow also began to appear.

What joy it brought to my heart! It was a confirmation that God was walking with me in this season of my life.

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Below are a couple of the photos I took. My camera couldn't take a shot of the full rainbow, only portions of it. But you can have a good idea of how it looked.

A Spirituality of Waiting - Part 1

Almost Heaven
by Thomas Kinkade



For I consider that the sufferings of this present time
are not worthy to be compared with the glory
which shall be revealed in us.

For the earnest expectation of the creation
eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.

For the creation was subjected to futility,
not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope;

because the creation itself also will be delivered
from the bondage of corruption
into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation groans and labors
with birth pangs together until now.

Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,
even we ourselves groan within ourselves
eagerly waiting for the adoption,
the redemption of our body.

For we were saved in this hope,
but hope that is seen is not hope;
for why does one still hope for what he sees?

But if we hope for what we do not see,
we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.

Romans 8:18-25

These past days I shared my thoughts about a theology of weakness. Today, I will write about something that is very close to my heart - heaven.

What is it that you really long for, deep inside your heart? What is it that you really long to do? What is it that you really long to be?

Each one of us has a dream deep inside our true selves; every now and then we hear that dream calling out to us. If we are quiet enough, on some days, it comes to us--and time stops as we find ourselves alone with the still small voice of God.

The awesome thing is that He's not really saying anything... He's just there. You wake up in the middle of the night, you sit up in bed, and you sense His holy quiet, His unobtrusive gentle presence saying, "I'm here."

I call it an eternal moment.

Sometimes it is in the middle of a busy day at work, or of a household chore, when you suddenly feel like time is not moving, and you have an encounter with an eternal moment.

It's not always like God Himself is showing up. Sometimes it is a piece of your dream, sometimes it's a bubble of joy, a ray of hope. Suddenly you feel like shouting a line of a song you have never even heard before. Or you suddenly feel like dancing! It takes you by surprise.

I believe it is still the presence of the Eternal. Except that God's so great, so awesome, so quiet, so beautiful... He's so deep, and unfathomable, and beyond description.

It is God's presence, revealing Himself to us in a new way. He just loves to do that with us. He loves to set us free from the containers of our stale and worn out experiences.

When such moments take place, there are no words adequate enough to describe what's taking place. But it feels like you're almost... in heaven!

Have you ever been to heaven?

If God is our heavenly Father, and Jesus is our King, Redeemer, and Lord, then the answer is, "Yes, of course!" We actually live there! The Bible says that we're seated in the heavenlies with Christ -- and it's not a future, pie in the sky sort of thing. It's a NOW thing!

When the clouds of this earthly reality part to give us a glimpse of our eternal abode, don't you sometimes hear God say to you, "Welcome home, my child. THis ishow home feels like." And oh, how good it feels to be home indeed.

We don't belong in this world, but being here is a necessary, essential part of our journey toward our real home. This is important, too. Being here creates in us a right perspective, a deeper longing, a deeper hunger for God's heart.

The Bible says that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the eternal glory that will be revealed in us. Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

This life and the next - NO COMPARISON WHATSOEVER... NOT WORTH COMPARING AT ALL!

God gives us those eternal moment encounters to remind us, to give us hope. God gives us a glimpse into the dream that He planted in us on the day we were conceived in His heart. This is an awesome thought for me: you and I were conceived in eternity, before the created world even came to be!

We are fearfully and wonderfully made because it was God Himself who knit us, and formed us in our mother's womb. What imperfections ther are have come about because of the sinful choices that have started a machinery of sin moving.

For now, we cannot fathom why it seems that God allows the corruption of sin to gain the upper hand, but we could never be in doubt as to Who has the final authority. And God allows the eternal to break through time and again to remind us about Who has the sovereign and the full power over all creation.

We are eternal creatures, creatures of eternity, citizens of that eternal kingdom waiting for our full adoption as sons.

Yes, our whole life here on earth is about a spirituality of waiting, a lovely phrase introduced by my favorite author, Henri Nouwen. These past days, I have shared many of my own reflections on a theology of weakness. A theology of weakness and a spirituality of waiting, I believe, are one and the same thing, if not closely intertwined, like a rope of three strands, with abiding faith in God as the third strand.

When we look at life from the perspective of heaven, we begin to understand the interesting paradoxes that we live with from day to day. To mention a few: He prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies. We fear no evil though we walk in the valley of the shadow of death.

The past years, in my study of the spiritual disciplines I have realized that each one of them dovetails perfectly into a theology of weakness.

For example:
celebrating life's moments is recognizing what's truly important...
prayer is the heart's true home...
worship is giving God what truly pleases Him...
intercession is connecting to God's heart...
contemplation and solitude are fasting from this world's noise to be in touch with the Eternal...
servanthood is authority from below
humility and meekness are power under control
simplicity is putting God first before self...
joy is a by product of faith and hope, living life with a sense of reckless abandon....

These are all components of the simple, uncluttered lifestyle we've always wanted. Deep in our hearts, this is who we are. In the eternal kingdom of heaven this is what we will be like.

Have you ever stopped to consider that verse in 1 John 3:2-3

Dear friends, now we are the children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that whe He appears we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope purifies himself...

Amazing verse. We are being purified and perfected to be like Jesus. At the end of time, when we finally see Him face to face, we will see that we have become like Him, a quality that enables us to see Him. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. (Matthew 5:8)

This being so, a theology of weakness fills our hearts with much hope and longing, a determination to be like Jesus - in our speech, our attitudes, our expectations, our actions.

Our priorities fall into place. In light of eternity we live for what really matters.

We've often heard this question: "If you knew that you only had a few more days to live, how would you live?

If we've been living right, we could easily say: "In joyous anticipation of what lies ahead, looking forward to my going home!"

This quote from Creative Waiting by Richard Bewes expresses much of what my heart feels about waiting:

Waiting can be creative and restorative if we allow it to fulfill its purposes, rather than fighting and complaining. God's mighty revelation says, "Don't just wait." If we bring God into the waiting, a new surge of momentum will begin to transform the situation and make it a positive....

The word for "wait" indicates waiting with confident expectation. If we wait upon God, we can expect that good things are coming from the extra time that is passing. If there is a positive purpose to the wait, we can wait more comfortably....

But it is also true that the significant character-forming episodes of life are not the pinnacle moments of drama and achievement; they are the dull pedestrian times when nothing seems to be happening. Those are the times more than any other when we must hang on to God and wait for Him in the knowledge that His promise never changes. We wait on Him in patience, and faith, and obedience. He will lift us up, not simply as survivors, but as overcomers.

Here's a powerful song by Jason Upton, I Will Wait:



Continued in A Spirituality of Waiting - Part 2

Waiting - 1

Moses, waiting for God



And Moses said to the people,
"Do not be afraid.
Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord,
which He will accomplish for you today...
The LORD will fight for you,
and you shall hold your peace."

Exodus 14:13-14

Waiting is the main theme of my life.

Learning to wait has tempered me. Made me mellow. Made me flexible.

It has taught me to be patient.

Above all, it has taught me to hope.

I can write volumes about what waiting has done for me.

At a difficult juncture in my life journey, God opened this psalm to me, and I learned to see it in a new way:

I waited patiently for the Lord;
And He inclined to me,
And He heard my cry.
He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
Out of the miry clay,
And set my feet upon a rock.
And established my steps.
He put a new song in my mouth..."
Psalm 40:1-2

I read this psalm everyday during that point in my life, and each time I did, something happened inside of me.

I learned how to wait actively, that is, to wait with a sense of good things happening. To wait with hope.

Henri Nouwen will always be my favorite author. There is something about that man, such tenderness, such kindness in his spirit, such flexibility, such vulnerability.

Aside from what has been written in the "waiting" passages in my Bible, it is from reading about Henri's life, and what he has gone through, that has given me an eternal perspective about waiting.

Henri Nouwen writes from his heart.

Maybe some of you can relate to what I mean. There are some people who write from the heart, and there are some people who write to impress others. Who try to make literary pieces out of what God intended as a revelation of His heart to us.

Henri was never like that. And that is why his writings have such a deep impact on me. He is a celebrated author, yet, he never wrote to impress anyone with an insight given to Him by God.

Henri's favorite topic is waiting. Active waiting. Waiting in expectation. Waiting with patience.

Here is a sample of what Henri writes about waiting:

Waiting is essential to the spiritual life. But waiting as a disciple of Jesus is not an empty waiting. It is a waiting with a promise in our hearts that makes already present what we are waiting for. We wait during Advent for the birth of Jesus. We wait after Easter for the coming of the Spirit, and after the ascension of Jesus we wait for his coming again in glory. We are always waiting, but it is a waiting in the conviction that we have already seen God’s footsteps.

Waiting for God is an active, alert - yes, joyful - waiting. As we wait we remember him for whom we are waiting, and as we remember him we create a community ready to welcome him when he comes.

Taken from Windows Toward the World.

Waiting has done good things for me. I've discovered the anger, the impatience, the pride inside of me.

Waiting has cleansed me. Taught me to be more accepting of other people...of circumstances...of life, in general.

Waiting has taught me to go through life without a demanding spirit.

A new friend on blogworld shared a song about waiting. When I listened to the song, I sat still for several minutes, waiting for what I just heard to sink in.

God was speaking to me, reminding me of the beauty of a heart that waits...

The song is entitled While I'm Waiting. Dear friends, how I want to share the song with you!

Go to Always Waiting, a very beautiful post written about it.



Other blog posts on Waiting:

A Spirituality of Waiting - Part 1
A Spirituality of Waiting - Part 2