
Why You Should Stop Waiting?
It seems like the dawn of day will never come, well at least with me it does when the agonizing diminishing minutes of waiting in the Starbucks line drag on for what seems like an eternity. You scroll through the news feed, you check your Instagram, you take a selfie or two (don’t even try to deny that you haven’t done this its just sad) and sweetly jam to whatever blasts its way into the speakers of your car. Waiting.
Then you finally reach the glorious window to grab the drink you just felt like you went through a marathon of tribulation to get! It tastes just as good as you thought it would and you realize you carried on with life in the waiting. You continued to be. The drink came just like you knew it would without a second thought. And all the while you carried on living life in its entirety because of one great assurance; the reward for the wait would be there in the end.
Now I know that is an infinitely grand symbolism to relate the relationship woes of singles to the steamed Starbucks lattes we savor, but stay with me I promise I’ll whip up a delight for you in the end.
WAITING
Webster’s states the word waiting as a period of time spent inactive or stationary. For many singles the ideology behind being in the season of waiting means being inactive or dormant to life. We should just await the arrival of his or her significant other, or the the next season of life when in reality Jesus came to “give life and life more abundantly.” Jesus didn’t sacrifice himself in hopes that during the “waiting” season of our lives we would expel ourself from living it.
In 2 Peter 1:2 it states, “Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God.” God wants us to have peace in the grace of the season He has us in. When we are celebrating in the season of our singleness He means for us to stop waiting in the literal since of giving up life and wait in the beauty of His assurance, the assurance of the great reward awaiting in the end of our season.Whether that is moving into a new season of singleness, a new relationship, a new place to live etc. When we stop looking to the next season to make life better and start seeing Jesus for all He has and is in the now. We settle in the peace of the grace of the present.
SEEING SINGLENESS
Singleness is to be lived. Not waited out in agony of finally being done like a math test or credit card application. Singleness isn’t about the pursuit of “finding the one.” Singleness is to be savored like a Starbucks frappe on a hot day. It’s to be lived in its fullness to grasp the great grace; knowledge and truth the Lord wants to extend to us.
When the choice to choose forever with the right person does come, (if marriage is even the end result for what God has for you) that its viewed through a season which was lived out in love and light not one waited out in disillusion and depression.
Singleness isn’t to be viewed with bitterness and sarcasm such as, “All good things come to those who wait”, I sure hope so because if I’m waiting for bad this is going to suck. “Why are you still single”, because becoming a magician was taken? Singleness should be a place on the journey where books are read, road trips are made at midnight, community is at your core, relationships with sisters or brothers in Christ are deepened, laughter is abundantly more, where dreams are drawn up and accomplished by the droves. Stop waiting for life to start or force people into a place which hasn’t yet been established for them in your life because you are so tired and exhausted of the process we’ve deemed waiting.
STOP WAITING
Hear me out please, I am not saying throw in the towel and go completely off the cliff of your foundations and cornerstone of standards. I am saying though stop claiming singleness as a dead, dormant dry season meant to be the end of all ends until you get to the mountain top. Instead change the viewpoint of singleness to be lived out not waited out. Let life be enjoyed, let God become more savored and let love most of all nourish and grow in the living out of the waiting.
“I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully? Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” Ephesians 3:16-19
This verse to me is the motto us as singles should be holding onto in a season where Christ longs to make His home in our hearts and bring us to trusting in Him even more for filling the space where our future mate will capture one day. But in the mean time letting God’s love grow deep in us to keep us faithful and strong. And this is the very best part so we can have fullness of life! A season of waiting isn’t death. It wasn’t meant to wait out with dread and expectations of lack. It is meant to be lived in the fullness of life, to be enjoyed to the utmost all the while increasing our faith and hope in the assurance of the end result that God is ever faithful in His promises to us!
If we are just waiting to wait out the waiting we are waiting our life to death.
And when we finally start living the waiting fades in time and we soon realize the reward came just at the perfect time and we arrive to the window of goodness, exceedingly abundantly more than we could ask or imagine. A future full of promise and the reward of all that our sweet heavenly Father promised us. And it just so happens to beat out a good Starbucks drink any day. Don’t you think?
Written By: Angela Groce