One of the good things about having to wait on something is that it makes the thing we wait for all the more sweet when it finally arrives.

My son and I were talking about how much we love the desert. We reviewed some of its attributes: the wide open skies that boast vibrant colors on the cusp of the sun’s coming or going – skies that, just a short distance from town, reveal billions of stars that dazzle against the backdrop of the black expanse.

As we talked about the crisp, clean morning air of the desert and the earth-toned colors of the mountains that surround in the distance, I looked forward to the coming seasons of Spring and Summer.

This has been quite the winter here in Northern Nevada (and it’s not over yet)! We have had more snow than any winter I can remember, and it feels like one of the coldest. The snow has been both thrilling and cumbersome. I haven’t heard anyone complain about the water supply it has provided – the whole community is grateful for that. The snow that turns to ice (because of the below average cold) is soon covered by another layer of snow, creating layers of frozen ground that takes forever to melt! When it finally melts it is messy. It does a number on driveways, roads, sidewalks – these are the things that make us grow weary of winter.

The snow is beautiful and makes an early morning feel so cozy. But soon we will have warmth and buds and blossoms and green ground again before we know it.

So we wait to feel the warmth of the sun.

So much of life is waiting.

Waiting for a due date.

Waiting for a reunion.

We wait for answers. What is the plan now? When the answer isn’t clear, we wait.

We pray for salvation for our loved ones and trust that God is working. We wait.

We wait for answers to prayers we have been praying for many years.

We wait for healing.

We wait for things to change, to get better.

We wait for that vacation, for rest.

We wait for reconciliation, restoration.

Maybe all of life is waiting and what we do while we wait, what we believe and where we place our hope.

There is a purpose for the wait.

Dane Ortlund writes in his book Gentle and Lowly:

Those in union with him are promised that all the haunted brokenness that infects everything – every relationship, every conversation, every family, every email, every wakening to consciousness in the morning, every job, every vacation – everything – will one day be rewound and reversed. The more darkness and pain we experience in this life, the more resplendence and relief in the next.

The waiting can produce in us a hope that is true. We are forced to see a bigger picture of life and time and eternity. We learn to trust God in the agonizing gulf of the wait. We learn to find our joy and strength and life and peace in Him and not in temporary things that have the potential to fail us.

Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD! Psalm 27:14