image: Ged Carrol on Flickr
We are tired.
Of all the places we look to find what is draining, wearying, and exhausting, waiting might surprise you.
The space of waiting can be both depleting and dangerous–a place where we are tempted to do things we would never otherwise consider.
There’s a fascinating and powerful picture of this “waiting space” in the story of Israel in the midst of their exodus from Egypt. The people have seen God do the impossible in their rescue–parting the Red Sea, squashing the false gods of Egypt, and overcoming the region’s most powerful army; they have witnessed supernatural provision and experienced physical manifestation’s of God’s presence.
In chapter 24 of Exodus, God calls Moses up Mount Sinai again to meet with him. “Again” is an important word here–because others have seen something this happen before and have even been present at a distance when God has spoken in power to Moses.
This time, Moses is invited further up and God speaks. God speaks for a long time–days and days and days.
The people of Israel grow restless. They must know God is speaking–every sign is there as it had been in moments past.
God is speaking,
he is just not speaking directly to them yet.
Moses’ job in this is to listen and relay; the peoples’ job is to wait, and the leaders’ job is to hold the line of faithfulness.
Listening, waiting, holding.
For most, it’s a waiting space.
It’s here that tragedy strikes: the second-in-command is afraid of losing the people as they wait and as their anxieties increase. So, after meeting with the God With the Unpronounceable Name who has moved day after day in power, this leader and the people craft an idol and start to worship it.
What should have been a place of confident rest instead became anxious, exhausting impatience where truth was exchanged for lie and God’s trustworthiness was called into question.
I wonder how many of us have a sense God is speaking and moving… but not yet speaking and moving in our specific circumstance. We can wait and rest in confidence so that when it is time to hear and respond, we are ready. Or we can–out of anxious impatience–shift to crafting our own way in our own time, buying into a lie that God can’t be trusted and his timeline is too long.
One of those options positions us so we can act when it’s time; the other fractures us and and leaves us absolutely exhausted.
