Have you ever wanted something and then found that the process of getting there isn’t as you had envisioned it? Perhaps you’ve prayed for God to come in and do what only God can do. Our timeframe includes the instantaneous change, but we more often than not find that we’re stuck waiting. And waiting. And waiting some more. It can be discouraging to hope for something, and time just keeps going by without seeing that which you’ve been hoping for. Praying for direction with your career, maybe praying for healing, or perhaps praying over issues with your kiddos.
But you’re still waiting.
Whenever I’m struggling with things – anything at all, really – I would love to tell you that I immediately turn to God and His Word for answers, hope, and peace. The reality is that I will typically get there, but it takes me a bit of time. Yeah, I know… the irony isn’t lost on me. Once I come to my senses and recognize that my hope and peace is found only in Him, well, that’s when I seem to calm down.
I wrote a bit about the times we’re stuck waiting in my post Now Wait Just a Minute. Not a bad post if I do say so myself, but there’s a lot more that can be added to it. Let me give you an example from scripture that might give us a bit of comfort since we know how things turned out.
You might think I’m going to talk about Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 12-21). Good grief did they know what it meant to wait! Sarah was 90 when she gave birth to her first child – that’s more than impressive! She and Abraham had been promised a son, they schemed to have a child through a slave because they were impatient (they didn’t like to wait either), but at just the right time, God came in and did what only God can do.
Or you might think about the waiting King David had to endure (I Samuel 16-II Samuel 5). He was probably somewhere in the age range of 12-16 when he was anointed king, but he wasn’t crowned king until he was 30. That’s a long time to wait! For David, it wasn’t just the amount of time, but he was on the run for the majority of it. His best friend’s father, the crowned king of Israel – Saul, was determined to kill David. So he was waiting and constantly on the run for his life.
If anyone knew about waiting and the importance of where you place your focus, it was David. A prime example that illustrates this is Psalm 27. In that chapter he wrote: …though a mighty army surrounds me, my heart will not be afraid… David would be a pretty good example of waiting even when the odds don’t look that great.
But I’m going to highlight something in between the time of the elderly couple who had a baby and the anointed king who had to wait for his throne. Let’s take a look at when the Israelites were first freed from slavery.
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. Exodus 14:21-22 NIV
We love watching movies in our family. It’s a favorite way to pass the time. Special effects can make or break a movie, can’t they? Imagine how entertaining it would be to watch wind blowing to divide water into two separate parts… and it took all night long. All. Night. Long. It’s in the Bible! Even without the special effects, simple Sunday School classes portray the Red Sea parting to be instantaneous! Moses stretches out his hand over the Red Sea and Bam! the wind starts to blow. And it blows some more. A bit of the water shifts… and more wind blowing.
The reality is that there was waiting even with one of the most iconic wonders done by God.
With most of the well-known Bible stories, I try to picture myself there in the midst of what is going on. If I were to be looking in one direction, I would see Pharaoh and his army of chariots. In the other direction, I would see the Red Sea. I’m there, I’m praying for a miracle – I really don’t want to die without really experiencing freedom, and now there’s a wind from the east that’s severely messing up my hair.
Did anyone else think of Mary Poppins when they read a strong east wind? Like I said, we like to watch our movies. I started to picture Bert (played by Dick Van Dyke) as a one-man-band doing his comical poetry in the park. Bert is in the process of starting a lyrical story for one of the spectators and instead gets distracted by the wind. For those who don’t remember, this is what comes out: Winds in the east, mist coming in. Like somethin’ is brewin’ and ’bout to begin. Can’t put me finger on what lies in store, but I feel what’s to happen all happened before.
I found this pretty interesting since an eastern wind symbolizes change and new beginnings . In the Bible, the symbolism is of destruction, God’s judgment, and His divine intervention. It represents God’s power and sovereignty over everything – including all of the elements. Interestingly enough, it is the same word used for the Holy Spirit (rûaḥ – Strong’s H7307).
Abraham and Sarah entertained the Lord (appeared as three men), and they were promised a son (Genesis 18:1-14). It gives me chills to think that the Trinity shared a meal with Abraham! But just like the wind taking all night long to dry the floor of the Red Sea, Sarah didn’t have a God promised and BAM! path to motherhood. She went through the entire process of pregnancy and childbirth. And that was after waiting for decades.
King Saul was anointed king in a very public way, but David was anointed in the presence of only his family. From the moment of his anointing, however, the Spirit of the Lord (rûaḥ – Strong’s H7307), came mightily upon him. He struggled, I’m sure, with waiting for God’s plans for his life to become reality. But more often than not, he recognized the strength and power of the wind.
Our family has had plenty of trips to the beach over the years and I have marveled at the vastness of the horizon and the significance of a single grain of sand. Picture standing on the beach. You feel the sun on your face, the breeze in your hair, and the sand between your toes. In one direction, clear, blue skies with the makings of a picture-perfect sunset. In the other direction, however, there are dark, ominous storm clouds. Maybe you even see a few bolts of lightning in the distance. One holds the makings for a perfect family holiday while the other might bring about fear and disappointment.
But then you focus on the wind. As you feel it – as you pay closer attention to it – you notice that it’s blowing the storm away from you and not towards you. Do you continue to watch the storm? Do you continue to entertain thoughts and feelings of that fear and disappointment when you already know that the wind is working in your favor?
As a mother, there are definitely parts of pregnancy, labor, and delivery that I wish I could skip over. But there’s beauty in the process. Being able to get the job of your dreams with the snap of your fingers might reveal that it’s empty without the journey of working to get there. And maybe the wind having to blow all night long in order for the floor of the Red Sea to be dry isn’t as impressive as Hollywood would portray, but worshipping the One who created and controls the wind is pretty stinkin’ awesome.
That rûaḥ power that parted the Red Sea is the same rûaḥ power that now lives inside every believer. All the time. That power is inside me all the time, but what am I doing? I don’t want to be standing at the edge of the Red Sea, worried about the enemy army, when I have the Holy Spirit and all His power living on the inside of me. I think I’ll take the windy wait. What about you?