“Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!” Psalm 27:14 ESV
The room was large, with a check-in window. Sterile green walls offered no visual entertainment to those seated in the uncomfortable, metal-framed, faux-leather chairs circling the room, interrupted by short end tables cluttered with magazines and ashtrays. Two doors on opposing walls were inserted between the chairs. The larger door was the entry and exit door. I guessed the second door led back to the doctors’ offices and examination rooms.
Cigarette smoke filled the room.
I was bored. Sitting next to my momma and granny, my eyes lazily scanned the mostly empty room. I looked past the man smoking, sitting almost directly opposite us, then my eyes jerked back, checking whether what I thought I saw was what I had seen.
Unfortunately, I saw what I thought I saw. The smoking man held his cigarette tight between his teeth, smoke rising with every puff. Through an unnatural window in his cheek, I could see his teeth holding the cigarette resting on his tongue, as smoke exited through the side of his face with every breath.
I was horrified and mesmerized at the same time. Momma noticed my reaction and whispered, “Stop staring!”
“What’s the matter with him?”
After shushing me again, her mouth hidden by her hand, Momma quietly said that cancer had eaten his cheek away.
This morning during my devotion time as I read Psalm 37, I read the beginning of verse seven:
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him.
As I considered the phrase “wait patiently for Him,” immediately, I saw a mental picture of that doctor’s waiting room and the man with the smoking hole in the side of his face.
That image is as fresh and horrifying in my mind today as it was to my fifth-grade eyes many years ago.
I reread the verses surrounding verse seven:
Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him, and He will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices! … Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. – Psalm 37:5-8 ESV
I don’t know about you, but I have found myself in God’s waiting room on many occasions. And I’ve come to believe that how we conduct ourselves in God’s waiting room directly affects how long we linger there.
Are we like the man who sat in the waiting room smoking his cigarette as he waited to see his oncologist, hoping to find a cure for his cancer? The man persisted in the very thing that was killing him.
And like the smoking man, do we sit in God’s waiting room, resentful of our situation, continuing in our sin or backslidden condition, demanding to be set free so we can chart our own path?
Do we spend our time fretting, trying to find a solution that will break us out of God’s waiting room? Do we blame others or even God for sidelining us by placing us in a waiting room? Do we mourn that the waiting room is a sort of punishment?
Or do we wait patiently, trusting that God is in control? Do we believe He has our best in His mind and on His heart? Do we abide in peace, knowing that He is working all things together for our good? Do we understand that “our good” doesn’t mean “our wants,” but rather it is what God knows is best for our growth and spiritual maturation?
Do we use our time in God’s waiting room to examine our hearts and look for anything that needs to be realigned with the heart of God?
Do we recognize that God’s waiting room is a sacred place of repair and preparation?
In Psalms 35:5-8, the psalmist gives us guidelines for the inevitable times of waiting that all believers will experience:
- Commit or recommit yourself to God.
- Trust Him and know He will act in His good timing.
- Recognize that He is doing a good work in you.
- Be still and be patient.
- Don’t worry or fret.
- You may feel like your life is on hold. It isn’t; God is actively working in you.
Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10 ESV
Believer, depending on God’s purpose in your life, His waiting room will be a place of conviction, repentance, restoration, refreshment, equipping, and preparation—or some combination of those purposes. Waiting rooms prepare us for the next step God has planned for our journey with Him.
Don’t be frustrated when you find yourself in God’s waiting room. Listen for His voice. Ask for guidance, wisdom, and understanding. Consider time well spent in God’s waiting room a heavenly investment in growing in your relationship with Him and your usefulness for Kingdom-building.
The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. – Lamentations 3:25 ESV
Friend, are you in God’s waiting room now? Or have you been recently? How are you occupying your time during the wait or how did you?