This week, we have chosen two illustrations that describe the nature of waiting, and perhaps can inspire each of us to wait well as we long for life to return, at least in part, to normalcy: 

Hope you enjoy,

Stu

The Forge

At least as important as the things we wait for is the work God wants to do in us as we wait…

Picture a blazing hot forge and a piece of gold thrust into it to be heated until all that is impure and false is burnt out.  As it is heated, it is also softened and shaped by the metalworker.  Our faith is the gold; our suffering is the fire.  The forge is the waiting: it is the tension and longing and, at times, anguish of waiting for God to keep his promises…

Taken from Waiting: Finding Hope When God Seems Silent by Ben Patterson Copyright (c) 1989 by Ben Patterson. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com

Waiting is More than In-Between Time

Waiting isn’t an in-between time. Instead, this often-hated and under-appreciated time has been a silent force that has shaped our social interactions. Waiting isn’t a hurdle keeping us from intimacy and from living our lives to our fullest. Instead, waiting is essential to how we connect as humans through the messages we send.

Waiting shapes our social lives in many ways, and waiting is something that can benefit us. Waiting can be fruitful. If we lose it, we will lose the ways that waiting shapes vital elements of our lives like social intimacy, the production of knowledge, and the creative practices that depend on the gaps formed by waiting.

Jason Farman, Delayed Response: The Art of Waiting from the Ancient to the Instant World . Yale University Press. 2018, Kindle Locations 308-317.

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