Lenten Meditation

WAITING – THE GREAT CHALLENGE OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

A few days after the start of the New Year I went grocery shopping.  I was surprised to find peanut butter Easter eggs for sale at the cash register. We had not even completed the twelve days of Christmas and Easter was more than three months away, but shoppers were invited to be hippity-hoppity happy with Easter treats.

I remember a time as a child when my mother made Easter eggs. The aroma of freshly grated coconut and molten dark chocolate teased the senses, but my mother was firm – no Easter eggs until Easter Sunday.

The book of Ecclesiastes tells us that there is a season for everything, a time for every affair under the heavens. But in our fast-paced, technologically savvy, internet world, everything is at hand, at our disposal within minutes. Want to read the latest novel? No need to put your name on the wait list at the library; download Ken Fowlett or John Grisham on your Kindle for an immediate read. Hungry for shortcake? No need to wait until May. Strawberries from Florida are available twelve months of the year. Not wanting to stand in line at the cinema for movie tickets? Go online, pre-purchase your ticket, walk pass the crowd and buy your popcorn without a minutes wait.

While the conveniences of modern life are often a blessing, I wonder if having the world instantly at our finger tips has caused us to forget the art of waiting. And it is the art of waiting that is at the heart of the spiritual life. The spiritual life in every tradition tells us that reality is more than what appears. What is meaningful cannot be measured by the seconds on the clock or the dates on a calendar. What is of God challenges us to step back and take a long loving look at that which we cannot see save through the eyes of faith. What is of God challenges us to live expectantly in God’s time rather than in the instant gratification this world has to offer.

I hear it from people of every age in every walk of life: my biggest problem is patience. I am not surprised. How can we be patient if we never have to wait? Patience is not a virtue inbred in our spiritual DNA. It is a virtue that is learned by the discipline of waiting. I will wait until Easter to taste the peanut butter egg. I will wait until Christmas before I decorate the tree. I will wait without fuss while I give another preference in a long line of traffic.

I say it often: most of our frustration, most of our anger happens when we fail to remember that this is not heaven yet. Learning to live in this less-than-heaven world of ours challenges us to wait, to be patient. To be willing to wait, to practice being patient lowers our blood pressure and lifts our spirits as we choose to live in God’s good time.