Delighting in the Wait

Who would have thought that a free laptop sticker I received at ICOM 2017 would lead to this moment? As a college student who was much more interested in collecting free merch than talking to a mission representative, I would not have thought that. After almost seven years and countless lessons learned from the Lord, there is one specific lesson I want to share with you.

But before we get too far into that, a bit of a back story. I am big on knowing the context behind every story. In February of 2021, I started working in OMS’ Mobilization Department as the mobilization coordinator. I loved that role and my team a lot. The role seemed to be fit perfectly for my gifts and talents. A bit of administration, a bit of working with interns, a bit of talking to people about why they were excited about missions, it was great. No day was the same. My team, which was like a second family to me in one of the hardest and lowest moments of my life, was a huge blessing.

So, I was a bit surprised and rocked when the Lord reminded me in the fall of 2022 that I was called to field missions, and prominently placed the administrative coordinator position in Loughrea, Ireland, in front of me. I wrestled with the Lord in this because I loved my job and loved my team. Why would I leave something that is so comfortable for me? But the more I learned about this role, the more I felt the Lord reminding me of His call on my life.

The call to go felt so clear. I challenged the Lord when I originally felt this push to go, to make it obvious to me. My thought being that I was only interested in this role because I might meet someone through Mobi who was supposed to fill it. And of course, the Lord laughed and made it clear I was the one to go.

The role was administration, which is one of my highest giftings and I love serving in this way. They also needed someone who understood what it was like to live in a rural community, and I was born and raised in central Illinois in a town surrounded by corn and the closest big city was an hour away. (So, I may have a bit of an idea of rural life). They were also looking for someone who understood missions, I may not have a lot of field experience but spent my time in college studying missiology. The vision of the church and their plans for the future, also reflected so similarly, almost word for word to Redeemer Bible Church where I am a member in Greenwood. Then my vision trip with my mom where the Lord burdened my heart for the people of Ireland who do not know the full Gospel and hear Jonny and Julie’s heart for the ministry.

Upon reflecting on all of this, I remembered that the Lord does not call us to be comfortable. He calls us to follow Him where He leads no matter what.

So, that’s where this lesson begins. In August of last year, I left Mobilization to start funding and working on my visa to go to Ireland with the hopes of being on the field by that winter. As many of you know, this has not been the most straight forward journey, and as of a month ago my visa and it’s appeal were denied. Even though I have had extra with friends, family, and Kona (my dog), it has been a bit of a frustrating walk.

But no matter how frustrating the last year has been, you can always count on the Lord to teach you and make you grow the most in these circumstances. That is what we are going to chat about today, how the Lord has been teaching me to delight in the waiting, especially looking at Lamentations. 

Let’s talk about a phrase I have heard recently, “the speed of delight”. It comes from the very holy and good work of a Credit Karma commercial. Throughout the commercial, the idea of the speed of delight is to do things faster to be more delighted in life. It shows a sloth driving a car, and he progressively gets faster through the commercial to do more fun things. The idea being the faster things happen the happier you can be in the long run. In today’s world, it is all about getting the things that are hard done fast, so you can go out and enjoy life.

We all want that, don’t we? Be able to pay the bills quickly to be with our family, finish a class or a training fast to get the promotion or raise, or like in the commercial raise your credit score to be able to go out and buy more awesome adventures.

Now there isn’t anything innately wrong with these things. The time while we are waiting for something is more commonly used to do something else. In our ever-productive lives, we want to be the most efficient with our time. Waiting in line can be used to check messages, waiting at a car dealership means working remotely for a little bit. Why only wait, when you can be doing something else?

But what about when we are waiting on the Lord? How good are you at waiting on the Lord? Do we like to push our own agenda into “His answer” so we don’t feel like we are wasting time? Do we get frustrated and angry when we don’t feel like God is answering us or gives us a different answer than we were expecting? Do you delight in waiting? Do we actually take time to stop and wait in silence for God to move and speak to us?

One of the books I have been reading during this wait is Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy by Mark Vroegop. It is a study on the book of Lamentations and how to lament well as a Christian. I highly recommend this book, he talks about the truth of the broken world we live in, but how to still have trust and hope in the Lord. This is how I want to spend the rest of our time this morning. I want to share with you how lament has been so beneficial to me this past year, while specifically looking over Lamentations 3: 22-27.

The language of Lament is how the Lord has ministered to my heart in this time of waiting. Before we get too far let’s talk a little more generally about lament. Lament is a type of prayer where someone is crying out to God in a time of need or affliction that leads to trust.  Nearly one-third of the Psalms fall into this category, the book of Job, several passages from the prophets and maybe not surprisingly the entire book of Lamentations. Laments tend to have a structure of addressing God, the complaint or the cry out, the request and end with a renewal of trust in the Lord and praising Him. Lamenting is not just complaining, but Vroegop says it's the process “as we turn from honest questions to confident trust.” The verses we read fall into that part of lament, renewing trust and praising God.

Here is the main thought I would love for you to take with you today and what I have learned the most over the past few months, is that Lament can Lead to Delight in Waiting. We can see how to do this and remember this in two ways seen in these verses. No matter our circumstances we have hope in the Lord, and It is good to wait in the Lord.

Before we jump into these points, I want to share with you my first three steps of lament. Turning to God, the Complaint, and the Request. Then I’ll highlight how these verses have renewed my trust in the Lord which has turned into praising Him. Lamentations 3:22-27-

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

23they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,

“therefore, I will hope in him.”

25The Lord is good to those who wait for him,

to the soul who seeks him.

26 It is good that one should wait quietly

for the salvation of the Lord.

27 It is good for a man that he bear

the yoke in his youth.”

To see how I came to turn to the Lord in my waiting I want to share with you a portion of one of my previous newsletters. So, if you receive my newsletter it may sound familiar. Here it is.

“I have the tendency to base my worth on my work or to work without resting in the Lord. This has been the longest I have gone without having something specifically placed in front of me to work on. I have noticed a lot of restlessness in my heart from wanting to be going and doing something. This is when I realized, I thought I was not good because I was not doing. Ouch, that is not true. My worth does not come from me doing things; it comes from me being a child of God because of His grace and mercy. I was humbled by the need to learn how to rest well in the Lord. It is good to rest and be with God.”

This is when I turned to the Lord, and cried out to Him. I brought to Him my complaint, the next step in lament. Complaint is not usually seen in a positive light, but there is a way to complain in a godly manner. Complaints are seen throughout the Bible, most of the time mentioning the promises that God has made. We can bring “our case” to the Lord and remind Him of those promises that we are waiting to be fulfilled. Now this does not mean we get to think we have a right to be angry at the Lord or be selfish about our emotions to make excuses. But it is a way for us to remind ourselves of the promise and bring it back to the Lord.

More often then not my prayers of lament, start “Hey Lord, me again with the same questions as before, If you called me to Ireland, why am I not there?” Or this past month it has turned to “God if you called me and made it so clear I am to go, why was my visa denied?” I wrestled with the Lord because He made it so clear I was supposed to go to Ireland and gave me a burdened heart for the lost there, but yet I feel stuck in Greenwood, Indiana. And fun fact, Greenwood is not Loughrea, Ireland.

This is a reality though in our broken world, there are painful experiences and times of waiting we must deal with, but we can take those to the Lord and not sit on them until they are festering. But we can’t end on the complaint either.

Which brings us to the next step of the request. My request from the Lord might seem a little obvious, but it was inspired by the book of Daniel and the prayer of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego before they were thrown in the fiery furnace. In Daniel 3:17-18 it says, “If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, o King. But if not, be it known to you, o king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image you have set up.” These young men had so much faith that no matter the outcome including death, they were going to serve the Lord.

This modeled then my request to God. My prayer of request became, “God, I know you are sovereign over all governments. You can bring the visa approval any day, and I ask that you bring it soon. But if I must wait or if it is denied, I will still serve and worship you.”  I keep reminding myself of this prayer, because it was hard to pray this way at first and now reminds me what I still should be doing, serve and worship. It kicked me off the throne where I have no business being and makes way for the Lord to be completely Lord over my life and time. It reminds me that He is the one worthy of glory, not me or my plans.

When you stop to lament, I urge you to make bold requests. When Lord moves in His time, you will be amazed with what He does. When these bold requests are met or when we are reminded who is actually on the throne, we are lead to only one place. Renewal of Trust in the Lord which leads to worshiping His glory and majesty.

Now we can finally talk about the first point “No Matter our Circumstances we have hope in the Lord”. To do this let’s look at some context, because these verses are pulled out a lot.

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

23they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,

“therefore, I will hope in him.”

We like to remember them when times are good, but that is not the setting when it was originally written. Lamentations is most likely written by Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, as he is reflecting on Jerusalem’s destruction and capture. It is not set in the good times, Jerusalem is under pagan rule, the temple was in ruins, and the people enslaved. The book also does not end with a resolution to these problems, there is still hurt and pain surrounding the city and the people of God.

It is easy to see the mercies and faithfulness of the Lord when everything seems to be going right. And maybe even easier to say I will hope in the Lord, when everything is going according to our plan.  But what about when things don’t go according to our plan, or when our entire world seems like a wasteland with no hope in sight.

But when we go through the steps of lament, we can see how the Lord has brought us through before. We are reminded in each step of His character and past mercies. Lament transforms our hearts. As hard as it can seem, we have a hope in Christ for the future, which is why we can come to the Lord in the first place. In the midst of our circumstances we need to have the faith to hope. Nicholas Wolterstorff, in his book on lament, wrote, “Faith is a footbridge that you don’t know will hold you up over the chasm until you’re forced to walk out onto it.”

And when we are forced to walk onto that bridge, we are met with the Sovereign Lord of the universe, even if we feel we are in the darkest deepest pit. And the text shows us, how He will meet us in this moment, let's look. He will meet us with a steadfast love that never ceases, mercies that are never ending and are new every morning, a great faithfulness, being our complete portion and our hope. These aren’t just things for the good times. They are for every single moment of our lives. The Lord graciously meets us with these things every single time.

Now let’s look at the next point, that has really been shaping my heart the last year.  It is good to wait in the Lord. Let’s look back at the scripture.

25The Lord is good to those who wait for him,

to the soul who seeks him.

26 It is good that one should wait quietly

for the salvation of the Lord.

27 It is good for a man that he bear

the yoke in his youth.”

How many of us are really good at waiting? I am not good at it. In fact, the last year has shown me just how bad at it I am. Contrary to what we may think, waiting is not a waste of time. I have had many people come up to me and tell me, “I don’t know how you have done it that long; I wouldn’t have waited.” or “I would have moved on by now” or “How do you have so much patience.” Let me tell you I have asked myself these questions thousands of times, if it were of my own volition or my own desire I probably would have given up. My going to the field though, is a call from God. Who am I to change course or ignore the call of God?

I am also not waiting in my own strength. This is why I phrased the point this way. It is good to wait in the Lord. It may seem obvious, but those three little words “in the Lord” are key to the waiting. When I was waiting on my own strength frustration and selfish anger crept in easily. I wasn’t quiet about my waiting. But when we wait quietly in the Lord, we are placing our hope and our trust in Him. We are putting God on the throne and making room for Him to work in our lives. Letting go the idols that surround our heart, and emptying ourselves to be filled by Him.

In the waiting, I have felt like this has been a season of pruning. Now, as many of you may know, the pruning of Holy Spirit is usually not a walk in the park. It is seeing our hearts, how the Lord sees them. It is amazing when we get quiet, how the Lord can reveal so much to us. For me it was getting rid of a lot of pride rooted in serving or the idol of being busy and laziness in my daily Scripture reading. The Lord convicted me in my waiting of these things. These things were brought into the light and shown for the ugliness they are. God rooted these idols out of my heart to make room for His glory and mercy.

Mark Vroegop put it in a way that cut me right to the heart. “Why is waiting difficult? Because it feels as if we’re not doing anything. And that’s the point. You're not doing anything, God is.”

What my lamenting in my waiting brought, was peace that God is still good, even if we don’t feel Him or it doesn’t feel like He is. He is good. What a blessing it is that we get to serve a good God. He is good in the pruning, where He gets the glory.

The other part of waiting in the Lord that is good, is that we know this is not the end. And I am not just talking about when I get to the field. But that we have an eternity through the salvation of the Lord to forward to. When we believe in the power of the death and resurrection of Christ and make Him Lord of our lives, we get to spend eternity in the presence of God. And that excites me.

There is a phrase that I first heard at Redeemer that we have a heavenly homesickness. In my waiting this idea has grown for me and let me try to explain why that is good. I long for the day I can spend in the presence of God. The glimpses of His glory I have been blessed to experience in this life have brought an overwhelming peace and desire to worship the Lord.

But this heavenly homesickness also burdens my hearts for others who have yet to experience the glory of God. The tangible feeling of Holy Spirit moving is almost indescribable and I want to share with others this knowledge of a Sovereign God who is good and cares so deeply for all people. I have more desire now than I did a year ago to share the salvation of the Lord with the lost.

Verse 27 is one that I have really wrestled with during this time. “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” When I first was reading through this, I thought, “Lord haven’t the last four years of growth and wisdom been enough. Surely, I have learned enough by now.” Which just reminded me of the ever-present sanctifying work of the Spirit. No matter how old I get, I remember that the me of the past probably would not have held onto the lesson delighting in waiting as I do now. I know that the 19 year old, I showed you before would not believe or think she needed to hear these lessons. Now, I am only 26 and know that most likely the me in ten years or maybe even next year, will continue to say this.

When we have our trust put fully in the Lord and are growing closer with Him each day, our “youth” is just one day or even one minute in the past. So, I will continue to bear this, knowing one day, when I am face to face with the Sovereign Lord it will all have been worth it.

All this to say that yes, waiting is hard, but I would honestly not change the past year, including this past month.  I am glad that even though I had to learn the lessons the hard way of how waiting can be good, I have learned them. Does this mean I will always remember them quickly in the next hard circumstance? If I am going to be honest, probably not. But I do hope my heart has learned that when I turn to the Lord and trust Him in this waiting, He is going to do a sanctifying work in me.

The Lord has blessed me with waiting. Weird to say, but true. I have grown more now and trust Him more than I ever have. I know that I can delight in waiting, because I have a Heavenly Father that I can take everything to. All my worries, all my complaints, all the gross things of my heart, and He is going to meet me with arms open wide. He is going to show me that He has been with me the whole time, and I can delight in Him while I continue to wait.

It is hard to delight in waiting, but maybe the language of lament can help you like it has for me.

I want to end by reading some song lyrics that I have clung to during this past year. It’s from Sovereign Over Us by Shane and Shane. The first verse and chorus are really what sticks with me. Don’t worry I won’t sing it, I will just read out the lyrics.

There is strength within the sorrow
 There is beauty in our tears
 And You meet us in our mourning
 With a love that casts out fear
 You are working in our waiting
 You're sanctifying us
 When beyond our understanding
 You're teaching us to trust

Your plans are still to prosper
 You have not forgotten us
 You're with us in the fire and the flood
 You're faithful forever
 Perfect in love
 You are sovereign over us

By Hannah McCalla, OMS Missionary