Wait for the Lord and keep his way. He will exalt you to inherit the land… Psalm 37:34

Everywhere I turn I run into people who are waiting:

Two very close friends announced parents’ diagnosis – Parkinson’s! They are waiting for further evaluations.

My neighbor’s husband is waiting for a job to come through – him and several hundred thousand others.

The college graduating class of 2009 is filled with students waiting for call backs, hoping and praying for second interviews.

My sister is waiting to hear from her doctor about her skin cancer.

A friend with severe depression is waiting for it to lift so she can regain her life.

I know too many people who are brokenhearted due to severed relationships and they wait day in and day out, praying for a way to mend the rift.

I am waiting too – on many fronts.

What has you sitting on the bench, lifting ‘waits’?

So what do we do while we wait? Do we sit down, drum our fingers, watch the clock, pace the room, cry out, “Enough!”

Last fall in the midst of my waiting, while going over my notes on Wait Management, my book manuscript, Bible study, and retreat topic I determined to spend my time in God’s Wait Room getting to know Him on a deeper, more intimate level.

I did so because while I was searching around in the Old Testament, trying to get a grip on how our ancestors waited and why God put their lives on hold, I read that God is displeased with His children because we do not know Him. Consequently, we misbehave, are mislead, live in deceit, travel crooked paths…

My plan was to read, not through the Bible in a year, but to read through the gospels all year long. Sometimes I read several chapters in a sitting; other times I read a few verses, or a simple phrase. I don’t allow myself to get hung up with a reading or study regimen. I simply let God guide me as I read the life of His Son.

I think I am on my third reading of the gospels – I started mid November. I am reading John and today read John 15.

I got an answer to my question. “What am I supposed to do while I wait? How can I survive this wait?”

Jesus said to his disciples, “Remain in me.”

At this point in his ministry He was giving them His final words. He knew that in a very short time they would be left alone, alone to wait, wonder, and worry.

Often times I too feel alone- waiting for Him to show me the way and get me out of the Wait Room – the wait is too heavy I complain.

The longer I wait the more I wonder. “Why? How can I survive this wait? When will this come to an end?”

The longer I wonder and ask all the silly questions the more I tend to worry, but…

If I wait with the proper perspective, with God’s Word in my heart my questions are answered, I survive another day, and He takes my worry.

Now, back to “Remain in me.” Jesus thought it pretty important that we get it – remain I mean. He repeated that word at least ten times (depending on the version of the Bible) in 17 verses.

The Life Application Study Bible says the following about remaining:

“Remaining in Christ means

1) believing that He is God’s son- John 4:15

2) receiving him as Savior and Lord- John 1:12

3) doing what God says- 1 John 3:24

4) continuing to believe the Good News- 1 John 2:24

5) relating in love to the community of the believers- John 15:12”

Suddenly I don’t have time to wait. I lay my wait at the foot of the cross, asking Jesus to pick it up for me.

Then I run off to fulfill steps 3,4, and 5 because knowing God means knowing what He expects from me and then acting upon it. I don’t believe He wants my wait to immobilize me. He asks me to trust Him with my wait so I can do His will here on earth.

Where are you on the remain-in-Christ list?

May we be found actively remaining instead of idly waiting.