"Wait" is a four-letter word.

I think there is a library full of words that rarely get used. When I am reading, I collect words that I do not know and try to learn them.  I enjoy an author who can create ardor and enthusiasm with clever wordsmithing. So I aim to do the same someday.  This is one of the reasons I rarely cuss - out loud anyway.  It seems like vocabulary cheating to me. And, there just might be a part of me that is afraid that one of my parents will reach down from the heavenlies and slap me if I do. However, those "colorful" words still dart through my head.  And if I'm being honest, every once in a while, one of them gets through the front of my face.

My morning routine is pretty much habit and can be accomplished without much decision making. I usually end that routine with a cup of coffee and a walk around my yard while I pray. On this particular morning, after a very restless night, me and my coffee approached the threshold but couldn't get out the door. A cacophony of life circumstances held my mind captive. Decisions to be made twisted up with emotional pain and physical consequences of the stress kept me from thinking straight or knowing how to pray. The restless days and sleepless nights had piled up. I had pressure in my chest and a pit in my stomach. After a few tense moments of standing there, I tearfully choked out the simplest request to God; "What do you want me to do?"

I mean no lofty pretense when I say I hear the voice of God. His voice humbles me. His voice silences me. This day, His voice came as it often does. Quickly, deliberately, and as usual with an answer I would not have chosen. This day, as I cried out my distress, He simply said  "wait." I'm not sure what I expected but it wasn’t that -and honestly I was a little perturbed. I took my coffee and started my walk determined to discuss this with Him as if I could persuade Him into a different answer. Was He not paying attention? I've BEEN waiting. I'm not going to tell you how long because I'm not looking for sympathy. But each season of waiting and anticipation has been met with a new pain and another arduous road. His answer "Wait", sounded like one of those four letter words that I try to avoid.

So I walked, sipped my coffee, and me and Jesus hashed it out. By definition, prayer is a transaction between us and God. The Greek word used in the New Testament for pray is proseuchomai, and it means "to interact with the Lord by switching human wishes and ideas for His wishes, as He imparts faith". The first time I looked that up I had to read it multiple times. So basically, I offer him my broken, short-sighted wishes and ideas, He fixes them, and gives them back all shiny and new - with a dose of faith. That only makes sense if I believe that His ideas are better than mine, and I do. In the words of Eli the Old Testament priest; "He is the Lord, Let Him do what He thinks is good." (1 Samuel 3:18)

I wish I could tell you the waiting came to an end, that there was no new hurt, and I'm finally in the shiny and new phase. But that is not the case. I'm still waiting. And the new pains bear proof that the enemy knows right where I can be hurt the most. (1 Peter 5:8) But... me and my coffee are still walking around the yard hashing it out with Good God Almighty. I can wait because of that dose of faith that comes through each time I pray. As I talk to Him about the wait, and He takes that word, polishes it, and gives it back to me as a different word - Hope, ironically also four letters. Hope suggests waiting for something that hasn't happened yet. As a follower of Jesus, my hope is not wishful thinking for a result that may or may not land.  This Hope has roots and it is sure, because it flows from the goodness and sovereignty of a loving God who has proven Himself.

I can wait because I trust the voice that told me to. And while I'm waiting, I will try to keep the rest of the four letter words from slipping out.