Sunday Devotional: Weary in the Waiting

(This post first appeared February 10, 2013.)

And let us not grow weary ...

But Lord, I am weary. I am so stinking tired.

... while doing good ...

Or, as the King James says, in well-doing. Which, as I recall from a Beth Moore study, I know is from a Greek term which carries the connotation of “being excellent.” Which translates to, don’t get tired of pursuing excellence. But just how long do I have to keep trying to be better, Lord? When am I “good enough”?

... for in due season ...

Yeah, yeah, when the season is right ... here we go with seasons. This is familiar territory. I grew up watching the fields being planted in the spring with various crops, saw them grow until you couldn’t see the dirt between the rows, and finally—finally as the days stop being hot, and the evenings are crisp and cool, and when the plants are finally spent and dead—

Oh.

Fall comes, the plants die.

The plants have to die, and then the harvest is brought in.

But it isn’t that way with every crop—summer gardens, for instance, can go on and on, and some plants actually produce for weeks before the plants are finally spent.

Still, there is plucking, and tearing, and in some cases, uprooting of the whole plant to get to that harvest.

And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap ...

Is that it? Is there some part of me that must wither and die and be ready to fall away before You can bring the harvest, Lord?

... we shall reap if we do not lose heart.

And I wonder, how can I not lose heart when the wait is so long, when spring turns to summer, and summer turns to fall, and the green in my leaf is drying and the stalk is withery and dry?

But then—the wind of your Spirit blows over me, and I hear Your voice whisper, I have not forgotten you. You shall reap.

It seems a Catch-22: I will reap, but only if I do not lose heart—but I find the strength to not lose heart because I believe His promises are true, and therefore, I will reap. One of the weird and wonderful paradoxes of His word.

There is the heart of the matter—can we trust His word? He calls Himself Faithful and True—do we believe He keeps his promises? And when I’m at a point where I cannot hold myself to faith, does He hold me there?

Can we dare to believe the mystery that strength is to be found in the waiting itself?

From Isaiah 40 (NKJV):

27 Why do you say, O Jacob,
And speak, O Israel:
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
And my just claim is passed over by my God”?
28 Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, the Lord,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the weak,
And to those who have no might He increases strength.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall,
31 But those who wait on 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.

(Galatians 6:9 also from the NKJV)