My Time Has Not Yet Come

I hate waiting. To be honest, I don’t actually know anyone who likes to wait. Maybe that one guy who can sit in a coffeeshop alone without a book or electronic device. Have you seen that guy? He just sits there. Alone. Deep in thought. He’s got friends that occasionally join him, but most of the time he’s content sitting by himself for an hour or so. I bet that guy has no problem waiting for things to happen. I can’t stand it.

I have trouble waiting for my garage door to open. For the gas to pump. For the water to boil. For my computer to start up. For the line to move. I especially have trouble waiting for people to move out of the left lane on the interstate. I have trouble waiting for anything that takes more time than I think it should. I have trouble waiting for anything that may challenge the illusion that I am in control of every single moment of my life. (Some of us need to stop reading and reflect on that last sentence. Seriously…stop reading for a few minutes and think about that statement.)

One of the moments when my patience is tested the most is when I have to wait in the school drop-off zone. Time seems to slow down as I wait for the cars in front of me to move out of the way. Those few seconds of waiting feel torturous. PULL FORWARD!!! Don’t you see that you are holding everybody up? Does little Billy really need another hug & kiss before he gets out of the car? Can’t you take care of that at home?!? C’mon people…we have places to go, things to do, people to see!!!

And don’t even get me started on the parent who throws the mini-van in Park, gets out and then comes around to the passenger side because Susie needs help putting on her jacket & backpack. ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!?

Yeah…I know. I’m a jerk. A friend of mine once told me the school drop-off zone is God’s way of teaching me patience. It hasn’t worked yet. There have been so many times that being a pastor is the only thing that has kept me from honking the horn and yelling at someone in front of the school.

Jesus take the wheel!

I hate waiting. Do you like to wait? I don’t actually know anyone who does. The reality, though, is that we all have to wait…

For lines to move. For packages to come. For our time in the game. For the promotion. For our next vacation. For the doctor’s report. For our baby to arrive. For the stoplight to turn green.

We live in a microwave culture that so often requires us to possess crock pot levels of patience. You know the difference between the two. A few minutes in the microwave versus several hours in the crock pot. The end result is the same — warm food — but the flavor of the crock pot meal is infinitely better than the microwave meal.

We live in a one-hundred yard sprint culture that so often requires us to run through life with marathon-distance patience. The difference is obvious. One requires maximum effort over a short period of time. The other requires steady effort over a long period of time.

Simmer slowly. Run with endurance. Wait your turn. Not yet. One day but not today. Your time has not yet come. Someday you’ll have your shot. If only we could have a 30,000-foot view of our life to see what’s next. Maybe then we could have the patience to wait. But then again…maybe we would miss out on a lot of important details.

I recently flew to another state to teach at a friend’s church. I could have driven, but it was cheaper to hop a couple of flights to get there rather than spend the money on gas. It was also faster…which worked well for my lack of patience. I left early in the morning and was in the air as the sun was beginning to crest the eastern horizon. It was a beautiful sight to see.

Have you ever flown before? It’s amazing the vantage point you discover. The earth below is revealed as a patchwork of interconnected roads and fields and rivers and lakes and small towns and major cities. The views from the passenger windows are absolutely stunning. I often wonder what the view is like from the pilot’s vantage point. It must be staggering to sit in that seat and take in the landscape for miles around as you gaze far ahead towards your final destination. Traveling by plane is an amazing opportunity to see the world from a new perspective. The problem with flying, though, is that you miss out on so much detail when you have such a grand view.

You miss out on the beauty of the flowers in the field. The smell of fresh-cut summer grass. The steady march of the ants as they store away food. You miss out on the feel of the breeze as it gently caresses your face. The moistness of the early-morning dew on your bare feet and the warmth of the rising sun on your body. You miss out on the gurgle of the brook as it babbles along it’s course. The sounds of birds whistling in the trees and squirrels rustling through the leaves. You miss out on the face-numbing crispness of the winter air and the crescendo of snow crunching under your boots.

You miss out on the fact that time moves slowly. Inexorably inching forward. Moment by moment. Sometimes amazingly slow like the lazy days of summer. Sometimes agonizingly slow like a long winter’s night.

Now that I think about it…there are times when I don’t mind that time slows down and I get to stay in a specific moment for a little while longer. When my wife & I are nestled into the couch together reading books. When I fall asleep in the recliner. When I’m sitting on the front porch watching my kids play in the yard. When I’m sitting around the campfire with my best friends. When I’m at a concert or a movie. When I’m sitting in my favorite corner booth at the local coffeeshop deep in thought as I write.

What if we had the ability to understand ourselves and the world around us with such clarity that waiting was not a moment to endure but rather a revelation to experience? What if we had the ability to simultaneously see the lilies of the field as well as the pilot’s long-distance view of the path ahead? Jesus — being both fully God and fully man — had that ability.

Scripture tells us the story of the first miracle that Jesus performed. It was the first moment his glory was revealed. It was the first moment mankind got a glimpse into who this man from Nazarene would become. It was also the first moment that his love & compassion for his mother trumped the carefully crafted plan that he may have had.

There was a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the celebration. The wine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus’ mother told him, “They have no more wine.” “Dear woman, that’s not our problem,” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.” (John 2:1–4)

Jesus fully understood his place in time. He knew both who he was and who he was becoming. He knew that his time had not yet come, and he was content in that knowledge. He wasn’t anxious. He didn’t worry. He wasn’t trying to manipulate things to happen on his schedule. He was more than willing to sit back and allow God’s plan for his life to play out. He understood perfectly how this particular moment at this particular wedding fit into the tapestry of God’s plan for his life.

How I wish I could see as Jesus sees!

I wish I could see how today weaves into tomorrow. How this moment weaves into the next moment and the next and the one after that. I wish I could truly embrace the promise that my life is being woven together by God over time to create a beautiful tapestry. Unfortunately, my obsession about the future often causes me to lose sight of the fact that I am only permitted to see a single thread — this one moment in time.

“Look here, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.’ How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog — it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.” (James 4:13–14)

If we can learn anything from Jesus and the wedding at Cana, it is that we should embrace a life lived one thread at a time. Jesus reveals to us that it is possible to revel in the color & texture of a single thread without worrying about the tapestry as a whole.

I am slowly learning how to do this. I am beginning to see my current thread in time for what it is — one thread in a multitude of yet-to-be-discovered threads. Seeing and accepting this truth, though, is not easy. I often struggle to hold onto it. I have discovered that I am not alone.

I am mentoring a teenager who is wrestling through this reality. He is holding loosely to the current thread in his hand. He wants to let it fall to the side. He is afraid this thread is all wrong — the wrong color or the wrong texture or the wrong length. He can’t see it for what it is because he wants it to be something else. He looks around and sees the threads of others. He wants their thread to be his thread. However, he is slowly realizing this isn’t the way his tapestry is to be woven. He is discovering that this undesired thread is the one God wants to use to shape him into the man he is to become.

I talk occasionally with mothers & fathers who love their kids but can’t wait for the current phase of parenting to be over. I caution them not to rush through this moment in their children’s lives. I remind them that they will never again hold this particular thread in their hands. I try to help them discover that this thread — despite the exhaustion and the chaos — is one of the most vibrantly colored threads that will be woven into their tapestries.

I meet frequently with a young millennial who has come to appreciate the beauty of his current thread while also recognizing that this thread is coming to an end. It is time to weave a new one into his tapestry. He doesn’t fully understand what his next thread will look like, but he knows it is the right one at the right time for his young family. He is bravely tying together the ends of two very differently colored threads to continue weaving.

I sit around a breakfast table every Tuesday morning with a group of men for a time of prayer & Bible study. We are a multi-generational gathering. Some of the men are just starting out in life — just now getting married, buying homes, having children and advancing in their careers. We have other men who are mid-way through their life tapestry and still others who recognize their tapestry is nearing completion. For a brief moment of time each week, we are woven together to add beauty and intricacy to each of our individual tapestries.

A person’s life consists of countless single threads of time woven together to create a one-of-a-kind tapestry. Jesus had the luxury of seeing both the individual threads and his completed tapestry.

The challenge you and I face — of being limited to the here & now — is to simply embrace every thread of our lives. We must trust that each thread has beauty in and of itself. Even the dark & painful threads. And we must rest assured that God is working in our lives to transform us into a masterpiece.

“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” (Ephesians 2:10)