A Word from Pastor Nathan

Dear Friends:

When growing up in north-east Texas, we didn’t have cable television. Our television had three channels on good weather days, no remote control, and two fine-tuning dials. I remember waiting with anxious anticipation for next week’s McGyver episode. Now with Netflix, an entire season drops in an instant, and binge watching can commence. I don’t wait for next week’s episode, but next year’s season. It’s a long wait.

Waiting is a most-difficult spiritual discipline. One psalmist concludes a poem, saying, “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” Psalm 27:14. Reading the entire psalm sounds like the poet is giving herself a pep talk. I don’t fault her; we all need self-motivation. She recalls to the forefront of her mind all that God has done and prays about what God has yet to do. Waiting for God is akin to anticipating the next season of Stranger Things to drop on Netflix. Humor aside, waiting on God seems futile because God has all the time in the world.

In Hebrew, the verb wait is synonymous to hope. Psalm 27:14 could be translated as “Hope in the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; hope in the Lord!” When we wait upon the Holy One, we are not waiting in vain but hoping, trusting unreservedly that God will ultimately get everything God wants. Frederick Buechner writes, “To have faith is to remember and wait, and to wait in hope is to have what we hope for already begin to come true in us through our hoping.” Hoping and waiting are synonymous.

What if that for which we are waiting is already taking root in you, in us, as Christ’s church? It may seem small, but I see faith coming to fruition in Washington Avenue Christian Church. The harvest is not yet here. We have to wait for that, too, but here’s some good news: We are not waiting or hoping alone. Even when we are completely zapped, we wait and hope with each other. Christ waits with us, too.

‘What are we waiting for?’ some might ask. Let’s respond, saying, ‘We’re waiting and hoping for the day when God gets everything God wants.

Waiting and hoping with you,