Waiting! Does anyone ever like to wait?!  We live in an instant society where we want everything straight away. Especially with the age of the internet and technology, our brains have been trained to expect nothing less immediate and instant!  

As Christians, we can view times of waiting in a different way. It's often in a season of waiting that God teaches us some important lessons. Patience, perseverance and character can be developed. These words don't usually excite us but actually they can be amazing if we allow God to develop them within us. When they are developed, we will feel bigger and stronger. We also get to know God more when we are in a place of waiting, if we choose to focus on Him.  Within our waiting, we can develop the art of “waiting on God”.

Psalm 38:15 says, “I wait for you, O Lord, you will answer, O Lord my God.” There's a difference between waiting on God and waiting for something. Waiting on God means that we look for Him in our everyday life, believing that He’s aware of us and listening to us. It doesn’t mean that we hang around aimlessly doing nothing. It means saying ‘no’ to immediate spur-of-the-moment decisions and saying ‘yes’ to something better that you know will satisfy further down the line. Maybe we say ‘no’ to that chocolate or treat in the hope that we'll be able to fit into our favourite jeans! Or we make a good moral decision, which if we hadn't, would have felt good in the moment but we know would have had disastrous consequences.  (Why not read up on the story of Jacob and Esau in Genesis 25? It's an unbelievable story where Esau sells his birthright in exchange for a bowl of soup!)

Once we learn to wait on God, it helps us to learn not to indulge in things that don't fully satisfy.  Be careful not to get distracted in times of waiting. When we wait on Him, we foster a sense of self-control, knowing that something better lies ahead when we trust in God. Sometimes we spend our lives waiting for something, yet there's nothing else worth waiting for compared to waiting on Him and spending time in His presence. We can do this any time no matter what season we are in and it's an incredible privilege.

Let's be people who wait on God and allow patience and perseverance to develop in us as we wait during different seasons of our life. It may not feel fun at the time but it will be worth it in the end!