WAITING & LOVE
Photo by Serkan Göktay
Waiting is a common occurrence that happens in each of our lives. For me I have been waiting for over 7 years for doctors to correctly diagnose a problem that I have with keeping food down. After seven years of waiting for answers the waiting can strip us of comfort and can even bring on anxiety, truthfully sometimes it just doesn’t feel good, does it? What is it in the waiting that causes us to hold on so tightly to what we are waiting for?
You see for me my desire for answers as to why I can’t keep food down impacted my joy, caused me to not want to talk about my circumstances with others out of both frustration and even some embarrassment as well. It also caused me to question Jesus why this has been happening to me for so long and even why you haven’t healed me of this incredible long suffering. What if in the waiting we are actually called by our Lord to face ourselves and to let go of our control of circumstances.
King David had to wait over 20 years before he became the King of Israel. If we read some of David’s Psalms we can clearly hear and even, feel some of his anguish in his waiting. But notice how he eventually turns back to intimacy with God oh maybe not in the beginning of his conversation with the Lord but before David is done you can clearly see that the Spirit of the Lord comforts him in his times of distress. That through all these times of waiting David is to be known as a man after God’s own heart, the returning home is an important invitation for the heart.
While you and I are waiting what if we turn from our circumstances and our wonderings to sitting at the feet of our Rabbi and allowing Jesus to ask us two questions. The first question is “do you LOVE Me” and His second question “am I enough”?
These invitations by Jesus to move from waiting into resting is what opens a space in each of us for more interior freedom to be able to fully release our attachment to what we are waiting for. In this resting we are allowing ourselves to be more fully known by Jesus and to grow in an even deeper knowing of Him.
The Long and Loving Gaze of God
Sit back and relax. Collect yourself in the ‘long and loving gaze of God’.
Rest there. See God gazing on you with love, desire, acceptance. Now be with Jesus as He asks you do you Love Me in the midst of your waiting? Sit with that question for a few minutes. What do you want to tell him? Now look deeply into the eyes of Jesus as He asks you am I enough? Sit with that question for a while and notice both how your body reacts to the question and what emotions that it stirs up inside of you.
Spend a few minutes talking with Him about what you have experienced or what you might like to experience.
Keep before you what is most important: being loved by God