“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”
â€â€Ecclesiastes‬ â€3:1-8‬ â€
It’s interesting what all new terminology has come from the pandemic. Mainstream media has given most of our current mental state a new label: pandemic fatigue. Characterized as exhaustion from fear for safety and from the upheaval of normalcy. Essentially, we’re ready to move on, hoping for this long, strange, difficult season to end.
This kind of label makes me think of the Israelites after crossing the Red Sea. They had just seen God work in this extraordinary way, delivering them from the Egyptian army and certain death. A miraculous, awe-inspiring experience. Then they find themselves in the wilderness. Surely they didn’t go into it thinking it would last as long as it did. I have to imagine one month, two months, three months go by. One year turns to two, and perhaps things begin to seem more normal within their current situation. And they grumbled, and they begged God for the Promised Land. Exodus 16:2 says, “In the desert, the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron saying to them, ‘If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! You have brought us out into the desert to starve.’”
It would be so much easier to simply go back to the way things were. In Job 13:15, sitting in intense pain and suffering, Job says, “Yet will I trust you.” Though sorrow and grief nearly undid him, Job remained. He wasn’t happy about it, but he stayed. Likewise, the Israelites were not happy about God’s timing, but they too were present, and God was with them. Sometimes God’s timing isn’t our timing. Sometimes the current spot we find ourselves in is exhausting and painful and doesn’t make sense. But when we sit and wait for change to come, we’re gifted with His abiding presence.
In that presence, we get to drink deeply from the well of God’s love for us. We’re gifted with time to be in His company. To grow closer to Him and to experience Him in new ways. If all Israel ever saw of God was His big miracle moments, they would have missed the power of an intimate relationship with Him. If God had delivered them immediately to the Promised Land, they wouldn’t have learned to trust and rely on Him.
Just like we know for sure that spring will come again next year, God too will not leave us where we are. This pandemic will not be our forever. Change comes. And with it, beauty and newness and the opportunity to emerge with a new perspective. And while we wait, we grow. And while we grow, we change. Our lives become the changing season that blooms again. What areas of your current day-to-day life are you being impatient in your waiting for God to move?
Prayer: Father God, You are our hope. You give us everything that we need every day. I trust in You. Lord give me the courage to wait and remain in Your presence even when the path doesn’t look right, even when the road is long. Be with me Father. I ask for the peace of Your presence that I may rest secure in being close to You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
