The Waiting Room

Scriptures: Psalms 27:14, Lamentations 3:25, 2 Corinthians 10:5

It feels like yesterday since I sat in a hospital waiting room waiting to hear if the surgery required to save our 18-week-old twins was successful or not. 

I felt more out of control than I’d ever felt. It felt like an eternity since they wheeled my wife back into the operating room. Doubt, fear, and a feeling of powerlessness overwhelmed me. I prayed, “God, save my babies.” 

You might have been in a waiting room like that or even be in one today. One problem with waiting rooms is that we don’t wait well. 

When asked to describe ourselves, very few would pick the word “patient.” And yet, waiting is an inevitable part of our lives. Lewis Smedes famously wrote, “Waiting is our destiny. As creatures who cannot by themselves bring about what they hope for, we wait in the darkness for a flame we cannot light. We wait in fear for a happy ending that we cannot write. We wait for a not yet that feels like a not ever.”

Each year, the calendar invites us into a season of waiting. Advent is the season we prepare for and await the celebration of Jesus’s birth. It is an important season that we shouldn’t rush through. Instead, like those who waited for the birth of the Messiah, we have an opportunity to prepare ourselves to welcome Jesus. 

Yet, that preparation is often uncomfortable. Diedrich Bonhoeffer wrote a letter from a prison cell in Nazi Germany in 1943. He said, “A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes – and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.”

In the same way that the people waiting for the Messiah 2,000 years ago could not force His arrival, you probably can’t open the door out of your waiting room. If you could open the door, you would just leave. But then you might miss out. After all, God does some of His best work in waiting rooms.

A big part of this plan will be paying attention to what you believe about God and what you’re tempted to think about how God is at work. In 2 Corinthians 10, the Apostle Paul taught us that spiritual warfare includes the battle between our ears. 

On each day of this plan, we’ll examine what God does in the waiting room, including battling the lies we hear while we wait. 

Before we wrap up day 1 of this plan, I want you to know one important truth. While you are waiting, God is working. You may not be able to see it or hear it at this moment, but I’m praying that you don’t give in to cynicism or despair. God’s work isn’t always visible. Like a seed planted underground, God’s work often happens under the surface where we cannot see it. 

On the following day of this plan, we will look at the story of people who waited on God for longer than we have been alive. They have something to teach us in our waiting rooms.

Scriptures: Malachi 3:1, Malachi 4:5-6, James 4:7, 1 Peter 5:8-9

The waiting room messes with all of us. We are susceptible to believing lies about God and His work. The first lie we hear is that God isn’t doing anything while we’re waiting. But as we saw on day one of this plan – while we are waiting, God is working. 

This truth is embodied by people outside the familiar Christmas characters, including Joseph, Mary, the shepherds, the Magi, and King Herod. These uncommon people waited longer than we have. 

Their story begins in Malachi 4:6, the last verse in this book. When Malachi ends, the Old Testament ends. In my Bible, only one page separates the books of Malachi and Matthew. Did you know that the one page between Malachi and Matthew represents a 400-year gap? 

During these 400 years, there was no prophetic voice in Israel. God did not speak as He had before then. Some have described this era as the “400 years of silence” between Malachi and Matthew. 

But that’s not true. A lot is happening between Malachi and Matthew. There are wars and battles, and generations live and die. I think a better title for this section is the “400 not-so-silent years.” During this period, God prepares His people for the arrival of His son. 

If you lived in that moment, you wouldn’t pick the word “preparation” to describe this time. You’d pick a word like “turmoil!” As Malachi ends, the people of Israel shift from being ruled by the Babylonians to the Persians. Later, they go from having the Persians rule them to the Greeks. 

God’s people get a little reprieve when a group called the Maccabees defeats the Greeks, and they rule themselves. But, the Maccabees can’t get along. So, when the Maccabees look to the Romans to resolve their differences, the Romans take over and become their oppressors. 

Throughout these 400 years, the people waited and longed for the Messiah. If you think you’ve been in your waiting room for a long time, think about waiting 400 years. In a waiting room like that, temptations get real, and things get complicated. 

The people of Israel were tempted to look to other gods for deliverance, trust in their righteousness through keeping the law, and seek help from different nations. 

I don’t know your temptation within your waiting room, but I know you are being tempted. Like the people between Malachi and Matthew, our spiritual enemies work in the waiting room. They seek to lie to us, deceive us, and discourage us. If we succumb to their temptations, they will heap shame and condemnation on us after we’ve given in to their lies. 

The waiting room can lull you into dropping your guard, thinking you’re stronger than you are. As Peter wrote in 1 Peter 5, be on guard for the devil as he seeks to devour you. Like James encouraged in James 4, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. His power is great, but He’s no match for God’s power at work in you! 

On day three of this plan, we’ll examine one of the key differences between you, me, and God. Remembering this key difference will save you a lot of frustration in the waiting room.

Scriptures: Habakkuk 2:3, Ecclesiastes 3:1, Galatians 4:4-5, John 1:14

Can you imagine waiting for something your grandparents and their grandparents were waiting for? 

That’s what the people did in the centuries before Jesus was born. Like us, they were tempted to believe God wasn’t working. In a waiting room, you can wonder, “Is God doing anything at all?!” 

When the waiting lasts longer than is comfortable or preferred, you will be tempted to believe that God isn’t working and take matters into your own hands.

While you wait on God, you go through feelings of fear, doubt, worry, insecurity, a desire for control, anger, and betrayal. 

Those intense feelings are often the result of perceiving that God is late. When I think about this, I’m reminded of how the apostle Paul describes Jesus’s arrival. In Galatians chapter four, Paul wrote, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son.” 

What on earth does “the fullness of time” mean?! One thing it means is that God views time differently than we do. God’s calendar and watch are set to a different rhythm than ours. While we measure time by hours, minutes, days, weeks, months, and years, God views time radically differently. 

The people of Israel living in those 400 years thought God was late in sending the Messiah. But according to Paul, that Messiah came when the fullness of time had come. Isaiah states that God’s ways and timing are different from ours. 

You can nod at Isaiah’s words, but embracing God’s timing is another thing when you’re in the waiting room. When I’m in the waiting room and discover that God’s timing differs from mine, my first response is anger and discouragement. “How long am I going to have to wait?!” 

When I consider Jesus’ birth in “the fullness of time,” I realize that God created the ideal environment for His son to come to save the world and for the Gospel to explode across the globe. 

In the 400 years between Malachi and Matthew, Greek became the single language spoken worldwide. The Romans created the Pax Romana – 200 years of relative peace across the empire. The Romans also developed a road system that the world had never seen. A language, a path, and peace all happened, allowing the message of Jesus to be taken to the ends of the earth. 

While you’re waiting, God is working. You might not be able to see it looking ahead or even in the moment. But looking back, you may be shocked to see how what happened while you were waiting was preparation for how God would one day move.

On the following day of this plan, I will share what you can do when you’re impatient. It’s something I wish I had done when I was in the waiting room during my wife’s surgery.

Scriptures: Exodus 32:1-6, Psalms 40:1-3

Every waiting room ends – eventually.

Eventually, the surgeon exited the operating room and found me in the waiting room. He said, “Everything’s okay. The surgery was a success.” 

I was so excited! My time in the waiting room was over! But the doctor didn’t stop talking. “However, the next 48 hours are critical. Because you can have a setback, you’re not out of the woods. If you can make it through the next 48 hours, there’s an 80 percent chance your wife will carry these twins to 32 weeks.” 

I walked out of one waiting room and straight into another. As intense as those first few days were, they were nothing compared to the following weeks. I wish I had prepared differently for what was on the other side of the exit to my waiting room.

This has probably happened to you, too. You thought you were done waiting, only to begin waiting again. When this happens, you become vulnerable to another temptation – looking for alternatives.

In Jesus’s day, as the people were waiting for the Messiah to come, they stopped looking to God for their respite and refuge. The focus of the people of Israel shifted away from the temple, where they would go to worship and make sacrifices, to the synagogue, where leaders taught the law. 

How long have you been following Jesus? Perhaps it’s been a while, and you know the Bible back to front, but do you know the One this book is about? Like the religious leaders Jesus encountered, have you settled for knowledge of the Bible rather than an intimate relationship with Jesus? 

As a pastor, I’ve sat with people who asked me, “Why is this bad stuff happening to me?! I pray, read my Bible, give money to the church, and I’m there every Sunday.” 

In response, I ask them if they think God should bless them because they do all of those things. Are they doing all those things to know and grow closer to God, or are they doing those things to get something from God?

This was the challenge of God’s people after they’d been freed from Egypt. In Exodus 32, when the Israelites saw that Moses was delayed coming down from the mountain where he was talking with God, they made a terrible alternative plan. They gathered around his brother Aaron and asked Aaron to make them an idol. 

They had just been brought out of Egypt by God – delivered out of hundreds of years of slavery. They had left their waiting room. They couldn’t wait a few days when they entered another waiting room. Like the people in Exodus 32, we’re often more vulnerable than we realize and frequently look for an alternative to God. 

Tim Keller defined an idol as “anything you turn to and say – ‘save me.’”

When you’re waiting, who or what do you look towards to save you?

Is it your skills or talents? Is it your money or relationships? Is it your influence or power? Is it shopping, drinking, clothes, or social media? When you’re uncomfortable in the waiting room, whatever you turn to to sustain and save you is your idol. 

I encourage you to think about this question before you start the next day of the plan. If you can learn to depend on God for salvation rather than looking to an idol to save you, you will be prepared no matter how long this waiting room lasts or what lies on the other side of that finally opening door!

Scriptures: Mark 5:24-34, Acts 17:26-28, Jeremiah 29:13

Why? 

At one point in their development, this was the favorite question of all three of my kids. Their curiosity was overwhelming and, frankly, annoying at times. 

When we reach adulthood, we start asking “why?” again. However, our questions are more likely to be rooted in cynicism, especially in the waiting room.

• “Why should I even try?” 
• “Why should I even reach out in faith?” 
• “Why should I trust God? ” 

In Mark 5, we meet a woman who has been waiting for a long time. This woman experienced a discharge of blood for 12 years. 

If you bled like this during the first century, you were declared unclean. No one could touch you, and you couldn’t touch anyone. This woman was isolated in her misery. She went to people she thought would help her, and they worsened it. 

The text says that she spent all she had and was no better, but rather, she grew worse. That’s one heck of a waiting room! After 12 years, she’s facing a “not yet” that feels like a “not ever. ” 

Yet, she heard the reports about Jesus. So she found him in the crowd and touched his garment. Immediately, the blood flow dried up, and she felt healed of her disease. 

For this woman, the waiting room was over. She chose not to listen to the lie that God wasn’t working. She rejected the lie that God was hiding from her. Even in her waiting room, she reached out in faith. 

Many people in the Gospels were desperate to see the Messiah come. Consider a woman named Anna and a man named Simeon in Luke 2:25-38. God granted them longer lives to see the Messiah in the flesh, and they faithfully waited for the Lord’s timing. 

The bleeding woman became desperate for Jesus to heal her when she had exhausted all of the alternatives, and she reached out to Jesus because she knew He was her only hope.

In the days after my hospital waiting room, I got desperate. While those couple of hours around surgery felt long, they were nothing compared to waiting until we reached the 48-hour threshold the doctor mentioned. The months that followed included 18 weeks of bed rest for my wife, including six weeks in the hospital. I experienced a new level of desperation. 

I couldn’t care for my wife and be a single dad to my two-year-old son. I couldn’t be a pastor to hundreds of people and my family. I needed help! I became desperate for God and help from people. I couldn’t be self-sufficient anymore. 

I would have never asked for that waiting room. If allowed to go through it again, I would say, “No!” But when I think about what happened on the other side of that waiting room, I see a different version of myself. My wife changed, and our marriage changed. 

What if what you want the most in this world can only come to life because you went through a waiting room? God does some of His best work while we wait, including preparing to send His Son as the Messiah to save the world. Don’t give up, and don’t buy into the lies our enemy sends you. Perhaps you must come to the end of your rope to find God waiting there for you, ready to work in you as He never has before today.