Waiting Well

Waiting is hard! Have you been waiting for things to change with your job so your career can finally advance? Have you tried many different treatments waiting for your health to improve? Have you tried repairing relationships with friends or family members and are waiting for more reconciliation? Are you waiting for breakthrough as your children struggle through a difficult season? Jesus promised his followers that he would return ‘soon,’ and the following parable helped to prepare them for the reality that ‘soon’ wasn’t as quick as they had hoped. But it also helps us as we learn how to wait well

At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ ‘No,” they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’ But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’ Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour. (Matthew 25:1-13)

When the focus of our waiting is on what we want, we can easily become discouraged about when we will finally get what we want or become frustrated that it doesn’t look like what we had hoped. But this parable refocuses our attention onwho we are waiting for. If we follow Jesus and orient our lives around receiving the good he has for us, then we can take action to improve the situation with our jobs, our health, and our relationships. But when we come to the end of ourselves and have no other choice but to wait, we trust him to provide his best for us in his time and in his way knowing that he loves us and is tremendously generous. If we don’t wait with Jesus this way, we become like the foolish virgins who inevitably acted like uninvited guests (wedding crashers). The life of faith provides us with the ‘oil’ to wait well, knowing that he has good things for us in this life and even better things in the magnificent celebration he has invited us to in the life to come.