The Waiting Life

I have never been one to go to the last chapter of a book to see how it ends.  I always figure the end is there and I will get to it  when I get there.  However, as I read a book entitled, "The Promise of the Spirit," by William Barclay, I broke my reading rule. The journey through the interior pages took me into places of such powerful insight, I could not keep myself away from the concluding chapter.  The final words were framed by the passage from Isaiah which says, "They that wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint."  (Isaiah 40:31)  

Waiting is not something we do well.  Every fiber of our being calls us to the active life, instead of the waiting one.  The reward for waiting is irrelevant, we still wait with an impatience that agitates our soul instead of bringing peace to it.  It is in this context that Barclay wrote, "For an age which believes in incessant action, silent waiting is an unpalatable prescription.  For a man whose every waking moment is occupied, and who even steals time for work from the hours of sleep, there may be necessary a complete reorganization of life if he is to find time for the  silent waiting on the Spirit."   

As usual, Barclay is right.  For us to learn to live carrying silence in our heart may require more than just a conversion if conversion means a turning away from one direction and going another.  What is going to be required of us to know the revealing power of the silence which enables us to walk in holy presence is a hunger and thirst for God that transcends any other longing of the soul.  Jesus truly pointed the way for us as He said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness....Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. "  (5:7-8)