Waiting in {Life's} Traffic

“The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks Him.”

- Lamentations 3:25

An overturned garbage truck shut down the interstate this morning and made a normal 30-45 minute commute a right-at-2 hour commute to work.  Needless to say everyone did a lot of waiting on the Nashville roads this morning.  As one of the people stuck in the crazy traffic this morning, I …along with the rest of Nashville…can be witnesses for the fact that waiting is not fun! 

It’s like that in life sometimes too, isn’t it?  Waiting can be very hard and not fun, especially when it’s something that you want so terribly to happen.  Before I got my job in Nashville, I waited for a long time until God gave me this gift that is my dream job.  I applied to job after job within organizations of the SBC because I felt like that’s where God wanted me, but none of them ever panned out.  That time of waiting was hard because I felt like I was missing out or that I wasn’t hearing God correctly; I doubted myself and my capabilities; I even just thought about giving up on the whole thing.  Through it all though, I kept hearing a still small voice – not even audible – that told my heart to wait and keep doing what I was doing because even better things were in store.

Waiting may be wearisome, but God gives us strength (Isaiah 40:31).  Waiting may be confusing, but He will direct our paths (Proverbs 3:5-6). Waiting may be hard, but God gives us courage (Psalm 27:14).  What He asks of us in the meantime is to trust Him and to keep on following and serving Him day after day after day until the He gives us what we have waited so long for (Psalm 37:4, Proverbs 16:3).

After a few years of waiting, God, out of the blue, gave me the gift of my job with the very SBC organization that helps every single one of the other organizations I applied to – I call it my dream job because it was something that wasn’t even on my radar, but as it turns out was the exact, perfect fit for me!  Lamentations 3:25 says, “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks Him”… and oh, how good He is to me!

So…don’t get frustrated or start blaring the car horn if you are stuck in a “life traffic jam” right now, just keep waiting on the Lord and before you know it that road ahead of you will clear out and God will take you to who knows where!