Waiting Addiction?

We are all waiting on something. If we aren't then we've arrived at a place so overtly comfortable that it sedates us into non-committal lethargy. Comfort grows like a fungus, mold or mushrooms thriving in damp, stagnant conditions, which can lead from mild dissatisfaction to deeper issues like depression or delinquency if left unchecked.

To avoid such dissatisfaction, we put something on our mental or physical calendar, which will keep us waiting in anticipation... waiting for something, anything... the Advent season being a prime example. Whether it's Wednesday night dinner with friends, drinks with coworkers or decorations for the grandchildren, we are waiting with hopeful anticipation for the next thing.

Unfortunately, its oxymoronic to think that the thing we are waiting for will be the thing that stops us from waiting. Once that event has come and gone, we will long for something else. In a sense we are addicted to waiting. In a larger sense, when we wait for a life event, like a spouse, a child, or a cure for cancer, then we don't realize that in the waiting we put down roots so deep in the mud that we are asking for a fungus to keep us from going anywhere better. We begin inventing excuses--reasons created in comfort for why we can't go anywhere except to our next scheduled event.

“But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’

“Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’  “Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’" (Luke 14:18-20, emphasis mine)

We could read this with our own cultural equivocations.

The first said, "I just got a promotion I can't go now. Sorry."

Another said, "I just bought a house, I have to work to furnish it. Please excuse me."

Still another said, "I just joined a gym and have to workout, so I can't come."

In our waiting, we fine tune excuses for what we think we are waiting for, but deep in our souls, we long for something to take us away from all our waiting. We long for refreshment. We ache for answers. And we really just want to be children, waiting for Christmas morning with simple Joy.

C.S. Lewis defines this kind of Joy as "an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. [Joy is] sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure. Joy has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again" (Surprised by Joy, pg 19). He further argues that anyone who has ever tasted Joy would ever exchange it for all the pleasures of the world, because real Joy is not always in our control, while pleasure often it.

We think we are waiting for something that will please us, but we are actually waiting for God Himself. We yearn and pant for God to come back and take away all our dissatisfactions. Yet, He has always been here. We sing about it this time of year--Oh come, Oh come, Emmanuel--God with us. We don't remain excitedly open to God's Joy for us because we can't feel Him in our comfortable stagnation. Our counted steps, our controlled sleep cycles, and our continued busyness block His better blessings. The thing on our calendar blinds us to real Christmas Joy.

When He calls us to"come" or "go" will we have sunk so deep in the soft muddy earth that we excuse ourselves from an uncomfortable shift towards Him? Will we lay down firmness and rationalizations, which entangle and mislead, masquerading as good sense.

Real satisfaction is not in waiting for something but for the SomeOne. Not Santa. Not presents. Not idyllic family dynamics. Not even peace on Earth. But real Joy comes when we are completely satisfied in God alone. Empty your calendar, let go of control and simply sit with Him in Joy. The habit will change you and take you far beyond anything your waiting for this season.

~Carefully & Carelessly waiting