By Ife J. Ibitayo
For Part 1, “Hope or Hopelessness”, click here. For Part 2, “Between an Army and a Watery Grave”, click here. For Part 3, “Bitter Sweet”, click here.
Three months after leaving Egypt, the bone-weary Israelites finally reached Mount Sinai. Before this mountain, the Israelites saw the LORD descend in a dark cloud with raging fire and crashing lightning. Moses walked into this fearsome maelstrom and emerged forty days later with the ten commandments, written by the finger of God. But forty days is a long time.
“When the people saw that Moses delayed in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said to him, ‘Come, make gods for us who will go before us because this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt–we don’t know what has happened to him’” (Exodus 32:1 CSB)!
Challenge of Waiting
Anyone you ask from the age of six to sixty will affirm that waiting is hard. While in school, we pine the semester away waiting for summer. Then, when summer arrives, we languish the summer away waiting for the school year to start again. While single, we wait for our special match to arrive. When they do, we wait for our precious baby to arrive. When it does, we wait for our children to have children of their own. We will always be waiting for something, yet, in spite of so much familiarity with the experience, we often struggle to spend that time well.
Lying in Waiting
Once the Israelites noticed how long Moses was taking to return, they regressed to their old ways. They swan-dived right back into the sinful practices they’d followed in Egypt.
Similarly, in the midst of this pandemic, some of us may be locked in a death struggle with the resurrected zombies of past addictions. We may find ourselves helpless to defeat former sin cycles like explosive outbursts of anger or a perpetual spirit of indolence.
Wasting Waiting
After turning back to their old habits, the Israelites “sat down to eat and drink, and got up to party” (Exodus 32:6b CSB). Seasons of waiting are often wasted. Because we don’t understand the purpose behind the wait, we often squander it through mindless distraction, desperate for an easy way to pass the time.
Waiting Well
But the word says, “The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him” (Lamentations 3:25 CSB). Waiting for the LORD and seeking His face are supposed to be joint at the hip. While we wait, we should lift up fervent prayers and faithfully mine His word, so that when He does move, we are ready.
Conclusion
Let us not make the same mistake as the Israelites and squander this golden season. If we turn our hearts to God as we wait, He will open His heart to us in due time. God is always worth waiting for.
“Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you.”
(Matthew 7:7 CSB)