Waiting pushes all our productivity buttons; it ushers in all the mental lists of what we could be doing…if only we didn’t have to wait.
The day we got word about our transfer to Atlanta, Larry and I both kicked into high gear. We started four different to-do lists in my notes app, found free moving boxes online, and after four trips back and forth bringing home all our packing treasures, I cleaned out the pantry, filling boxes with all the non-necessities.
And every evening the next week we tackled several closets while our son packed up his. By the next Saturday we were meeting with realtors and had our house on the market within days. We knew how to do this. We were ready to move.
Only we haven’t. Over four months later, we’re still waiting for our house to sell. I’ve actually had to drag boxes I packed in July back into the house – because now I need all those winter coats and blankets. And that feels most unproductive. It’s also a little funny when I think back to my July-self, the one who would never have believed we’d still be in Texas in December. She would have scoffed at such a ridiculous thought. After all, she knew what to do to sell a house.
Waiting – it reminds us we are not in control. No matter how much we try to do, there is much in life we cannot change or budge or make happen. I felt this tension acutely in August – one day I’d grab the reins in an attempt to get things going; the next day I’d hand them back to God. By September I’d given them over for good, yet I still held internal dates and timelines. We’ll get our son moved and then the house will sell. Or, the house will sell just in time for our trip in October. Or, it’ll sell while we’re in Italy… My penchant for productivity made its predictable appearance, albeit silently and subtly.
If I’m honest, I still battle that internal desire to know when God’s plans and purposes will unfold. I want to know what He’s doing – what I’m meant to be doing. If I let myself, I could drive myself batty with such boorish attempts at control because they really only serve as distractions – from God and from what He’d actually have me do in this season of waiting.
Taking the reins and running ahead are attempts at putting myself in the driver seat. I can strive and exert and try to force things to happen, but in the end, God is the one in control. I am not. We are not. If we keep exercising that control muscle while waiting for God to open a door or crack a window, we will miss out on what He has for us in the now. We’ll live distracted, disappointed, discouraged.
It turns out the antidote for such distracted living is alignment. In the quiet intentionality of handing God the reins, of acknowledging that He is the one in the driver’s seat, we align our minds with His. With humble practices of prayers that release, that name where we are and what we’ve been about, we align our hearts with His. In the faith-filled abandonment that comes from true worship, we align our spirits with His.
And we receive a refreshment from the Spirit within us who gifts us with peace – with the ability to wait with faith – because we choose to look at our Savior instead of ourselves or our circumstances.
The Mystery of Hiddenness
Our desire for productivity, to get things moving when life stalls and we have to wait, can tempt us to believe that God doesn’t see us. That He isn’t working for us. But, His hiddenness does not equate to hiding.1
Consider the difference between a child who hides because she plays a game with friends and a child who hides out of meanness. The first girl’s hiddenness is intentional, with good purpose, but the second child’s hiding happens because of a heart that delights in taunting or teasing or scaring.
Hear this – God’s hiddenness is not hiding.
We can trust, then, that God’s hiddenness in our waiting is motivated only by good plans. In fact, “hiddenness is the gift of God to the humble ones who have traded in their own quest for glory for the pursuit of beholding the glory of Another.”1
God is not hiding from us in those moments we need Him most. Rather, He’s giving us the opportunity to humble ourselves before Him – to let go of our lists and plans and self-serving motivations. In His purpose-filled, unseen-ness, God hopes to encourage us to believe Him even when we flat-out don’t understand.
Think of Mary, the one over whom the angel Gabriel pronounces, “The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). She’s the one favored by God (v.30), the one called to carry God’s Son as a virgin (v.31-32). After hundreds of years of hiddenness, God speaks – first to Zechariah then to Mary. After all the centuries of waiting, the plan begins to unfold. And Mary, who is never given the blueprint in its entirety, is asked to birth the Christ Child, to bear the burden of His life and death without full disclosure as to how that will work. Her response reveals a heart, mind, and spirit aligned with God:
Mary doesn’t shake a fist at the heavens and bluster big why me’s.
Mary doesn’t pull out her calendar to determine her availability.
Mary doesn’t debate such ‘nonsense’, nor does she create her own bullet-listed plan.
She simply wonders (aka: marvels) at how this will happen (v.34).
She simply says yes (v.38).
Mary’s response to the most significant call of all history humbles me. And elicits within me a curiosity – how did this favored woman of God navigate each day as Jesus’ mother? His teething and toddling. His neediness and normalcy. His humanity and divinity. His ministry and miracles. His arrest and death…
It occurs to me: in the daily hiddenness of God, Mary had to respond the same way we’re meant to – with faith that is anchored in the peace of knowing God is sovereign.
Then another thought assails me – that’s the point of God’s hiddenness! He longs for us to be able to walk through life with a faith, even the size of a mustard seed, that strengthens as it carries us through darkness and devastation, through depths and death, believing He is with us the whole time. Trusting that He has purpose and plans that are for our good and releasing our control with humility because we know that we know that we know He has all the control.
Rhythms That Quiet our Restlessness
When we find ourselves in seasons of waiting and longing, anxiety can get the better of us. Fear of the unknown, of being left on our own, elevates our worry. And we jump into self-preserving action. But, here’s the truth – “If in order to be at peace we need to be in control, beholden to no one, then we will constantly be afraid.”2
For all our efforts to be in control, we never alleviate the anxiety. In fact, all our internal, incessant planning distracts us from the voice of God. All our spiraling thoughts keep us from renewing our minds in Christ. All the stress of not-knowing raises our heart rates rather than our awareness of God’s presence. In other words, such striving leaves us in a constant state of restlessness.
Yet Jesus just wants to give us His peace (John 14:27).
Think of the shepherds, who watched their flocks by night, who witnessed a host of angels suddenly appear – and how their fear ramped up. So, the angels spoke into their stress, encouraging them to fear not. And how were they to overcome their fear? By beholding (Luke 2:10). “The angel literally says, ‘Do not be fearing. Be perceiving. For I am telling you the Gospel.’ This is the principle—behold and you won’t be afraid.”2
The One who is Light desires to push out all the darkness of distraction so that we might behold Him. Paradoxically, it is the very act of looking upon Him that lessens our fear and hones-in our focus.
“To the degree you truly behold—gaze at, grasp, relish, internalize, rejoice in—the Gospel, to that degree the fears of your life will be undermined. What is this Gospel, this good news, at which we must gaze? A Savior is born.”
Tim Keller2
Such beholding shifts something within us, and we become less scattered, less self-reliant. Thus aligned, we can admit the full extent of our resistance to God’s sovereignty; in doing so, we confess we cannot save ourselves.2
The One who was born to be our peace invites us into a synchronized sort of oneness with Him. It’s why we pause, behold, and pray:
Quiet my heart with the rhythms of your breath
Quoted from Jon Guerra’s song, “Nazareth”
Quiet my restlessness
The light still bends when we say yes
Light my heart, light my heart
In all our waiting, we name the state of our hearts and minds so that light can break in and push the darkness out. We draw in closer, toward the One who seems so hidden from us, allowing ourselves simply to be…until we sense the rhythms of His breath on our cheeks, until we feel our own breathing settle into the inhale-exhale only His nearness can bring.
Miracles happen within us as we abide with oneness in Christ, as we live hidden with Christ in God. Beholding our Savior removes our fear. Aligning with Christ dispels distraction. And the restlessness that once ruled our hearts gives way to restfulness as peace settles within us.
May the Prince of Peace be your focus, overcoming all of life’s distractions.
Look upon us, O Lord,
and let all the darkness of our souls
vanish before the beams of thy brightness.
Fill us with holy love,
and open to us the treasures of thy wisdom.
All our desire is known unto thee,
therefore perfect what thou hast begun,
and what thy Spirit has awakened us to ask in prayer.
We seek thy face,
turn thy face unto us and show us thy glory.
Then shall our longing be satisfied,
and our peace shall be perfect.
(Augustine, 354 – 430)
Resources: I love sharing with you the books, podcasts, articles, and anything else that has inspired, encouraged, or taught me. These are humble offerings with no expectations.
- 1 – JD Walt, Wake Up Call 11/23/24
- 2 – Tim Keller in his book, Hidden Christmas,^ pp.110, 113, 114
- Have you run into a song on our Hiddenness Advent playlist that plays on words? “O Come All You Unfaithful” by Sovereign Grace Music takes a most beloved Christmas hymn and opens the invitation of Christ to all — not just the faithful but the unfaithful as well. So I was drawn immediately to the song because of its title. But then as I listened to it, I knew its lyrics captured the essence of this series. “Come.” “See.” “His promise is peace.” This is a song that we can play anytime fear or control or any other distraction determines to pull our attention off our Savior. We can allow the words of truth and invitation to realign us with the One who came for us. For our peace.
- The Abiding Life newsletter for December was packed with my recent experiences and aha’s about spiritual warfare. It’s true that we live in a broken world and that our own sinfulness and willfulness can wreak havoc in this world and our lives, but it’s also true that we have an enemy who seeks to distract, divide, and discourage. May we continually align ourselves in Christ so that we can discern by way of the Spirit what our prayers need to declare, what our next steps need to be. Feel free to email me if you’d like me to send you that issue. You can subscribe for future issues here.
Rhythms: As my newsletter’s title infers, we seek to develop an abiding life in this space — a place where we can get informed but also be transformed as we learn to abide in God’s presence throughout our days because developing rhythms is one way to aid us in quest to become more like Christ.
- Aligning ourselves with Christ is truly where we will find all wisdom and peace. But coming into such alignment is not typically an immediate result of mere will or choice. Oneness with Jesus happens as we pause and reflect — on His Word, on His love, and on our own motivations and actions. This practice of reflection creates within us a calmness — an ability to recognize our tendencies and anxieties and then the desire to lay them all down. Hearts and minds that behold our Savior find much peace with such reflection.
This week, may we each lean-in toward the inhales and exhales of our Savior’s breath, slowing down our hearts and minds enough to truly reflect on Him — and ourselves in the light of His presence. May such intentional alignment usher in a peace that truly surpasses all understanding. May our faith be bolstered by surrendering to our Savior’s sovereignty. May our hearts and minds find His true rest. - And while it’s not a spiritual practice or rhythm, I invite you to share this site. This is such an important topic that I want as many people as possible to join us here. Together we’ll find support and encouragement and the simple truth that we are not alone in our struggles.
Featured Photo by Guillermo Casales on Unsplash.
^denotes an affiliate link, with which this ministry may earn a bit
LOVE THIS!!
Thank you — that means the world 😍