Waiting Time

Generally speaking, we are bad at waiting. Our tech usage is one way we recognize our growing inability to wait for anything, but as believers looking at the historical arc of God’s story, we can only deduce that waiting has meaning. The time spent waiting for a message or event can be just as meaningful as the message or event itself. “Waiting ultimately reorients our stories: We are not the primary actor on a stage of our own making or choosing. Rather, God is the hero of the story. Will we be content to wait on his work? In these in-between times, what character will be formed in us as individuals and as a culture? Technologies give us the illusion of god-like power and control: summoning up any piece of information with one simple click, purchasing anything with a quick swipe, and expecting others to operate around our own schedules. But they can’t overcome the limits of our creatureliness—nor should we want them to. The created order—with its boundaries of time, space, and body—is not an imposition on our freedom but the life-giving water in which we swim. Limits are part of what makes us human. They show us more of who we are—creatures, not the Creator” (Ashley Hales, “Waiting Time Isn’t Wasted Time,” Christianity Today, April 10, 2019, https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/april-web-only/delayedresponse-jason-farman-art-waiting.html).