Patient waiting

Waiting. Waiting. Some more waiting. As a nation obsessed with queueing and taking our turn, the British are used to waiting. Other nationalities look at the British with our stoic, determined belief in waiting as one of the great strengths of our character (however over exaggerated it may be). We wait patiently for buses and trains. Every year we wait for the brief window of good weather some people refer to as ‘Summer’. As a football fan I’ve waited 30 years to see Liverpool win the league championship. We are all used to waiting.

Now, we find ourselves waiting in different ways. We must wait in the street outside shops until it’s safe to enter. We must wait 2 metres behind the person ahead of us at the till. We wait for it to be safe to attend cultural or sporting events in the way we did before. All of this requires patience, resilience and good will on a mass scale for the greater good of society. Collectively, we are all waiting for this time of uncertainty and fear to end.

Christians have been waiting for nearly 2000 years for the promised return of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible makes it very clear that God’s son will return to establish a time of everlasting peace and contentment (see Acts ch1 v11 & Isaiah 9 vs 6-7). Although the wait can sometimes be hard and on occasion feel like it will never end, through our faith in God, prayer and the support from our Christian community, we can overcome these feelings. Instead being overwhelmed with despair, we can grab hold of the certainty that our faith is not in vain. As we look at the chaotic things taking place in the world and what the Bible says about them, it looks like this wait is nearly over.

Useful passage to look up: Luke ch 21 vs 10-11

Photo by Macau Photo Agency on Unsplash