Why All This Waiting? : Part 3

When God Waits: Making Sense of Divine Delays
by Jerome Daley

(Page 3 of 4)

The lofty concept of destiny probably feels far removed from the mundane normalcy of your daily life. It often does from mine. But that feeling is a deception; destiny begins now. Until we accept and hold close our God-breathed vision for life and bring it into today, it remains lost in an unattainable future netherworld. This is why I quoted Brennan Manning's bold statement at the beginning of this chapter: "Being fully present in the now is perhaps the premiere skill of the spiritual life."8 Compared to all the other outstanding Christian disciplines and skills - prayer, meditation, fasting, study, silence, solitude, and so forth - it seems arrogant at best to elevate this highly intangible goal above the rest.

Nevertheless, over the years I have spent much time contemplating Manning's statement, and its potent truth is gently illuminating my soul. The grace to live fully and completely in today brings explosive transformation to our seasons of waiting. Awakening to the full potential of now releases strength from the weakness of waiting. Suddenly, waiting is not a barrier to destiny but the means of it. Waiting is not an enemy to be conquered but a friend to be embraced. Waiting is bursting with potential, overflowing with the abundance of God himself! This call to embrace the now is a divine strategy for unwrapping the gift of waiting and discovering its unique purpose in your journey.

In addition to embracing the now, nine other strategies elevate waiting to its rightful place among the spiritual disciplines. In each of the following chapters, we will look at a different strategy to harness your waiting season toward destiny.

Destiny was on my mind a couple of nights ago when I was invited by a Christian comedian to watch him put on a show for youth on the topic of sexual abstinence. As the lights dimmed and the music for Mission: Impossible rolled across the church auditorium, the spotlight followed a bald man in jeans and a T-shirt jogging up the aisle and leaping onto the stage. With the energy of a teenager, this thirty-something guy bounded around the room, walked over chairs, threatened, smirked, snorted, deadpanned, and harassed everyone in the house. But ultimately he kept kids and parents alike laughing and thinking for the better part of ninety minutes.

It was a thing of beauty. In between my own chuckles, I nodded my head contentedly, relishing the satisfaction of God in seeing one of his kids released into his true calling. There is very likely much more to my friend's destiny than what I observed that evening, but watching him clown around while delivering a dead serious sermon elicited in me a deep cosmic happiness.

I expect that most of us have touched the hem of our destiny in similar fashion. Some endeavor makes us feel fully alive on the inside, and we know that we're moving closer to our real purpose. Our hearts soar, and we are all there as we soak up the thrill of knowing God is working through our lives - and working well - as we wait. Something is happening that makes us feel as if we're beginning to be what God has always meant us to be. What greater thrill is there?

The Promise of Destiny

Think about this: destiny is good because God is good.

Dare we believe either? Dare we feel the primal stirring of unacknowledged destiny? Can we even consider that the purpose of God for our lives may be much grander and deeper and harder and more wonderful than we have admitted to our closest friends ... or even to ourselves? If that possibility excites you even while it disturbs you, then keep reading. In the chapters that follow, we will journey into this new realm. The realm of possibility. The realm of purpose. And make some sense of the process involved in obtaining our destiny.

What we now see are but the first steps in the progression toward purpose - the first stages in the epic drama of God's redemptive wildness loosed on earth. If this be so, it changes everything! The mere thought of it expands the scope of our lives exponentially. If it's true, then passages of scripture that used to be mere rhetoric suddenly burst upon us with opportunity and challenge. Words like "Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it" (Matthew 16:25). Verses like "You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Or this one: "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father" (John 14:12). And then there's a well-known verse few of us know what to do with: "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth" (Matthew 5:5). My own loose translation of that mysterious verse goes like this: "Let go of the smallness of your own pursuits, and join me in the bigness of my Kingdom; our destiny, you and me together, is to bring the very essence of heaven to earth!"

With God cooking up such amazing, miraculous, world-changing potential in our lives, why would he wait? Many times I don't get it. But we will.

I realize that all this glorious talk may seem far removed from the messy and mundane demands of your daily experience. Truth be told, I find that many Christians shrink from an honest appraisal of both ends of the spectrum: the pain and hardness of life as well as the glory and hope of our calling. It's easier (and less emotionally threatening) to narrow our expectation of life down to the mindless, single-syllable response given to most casual inquiries: "Fine."

Copyright © 2005 by Jerome Daley.

About the Author

Jerome and Kellie Daley cofounded oneFlesh Ministries after serving for ten years as worship pastor and leader of women's ministries in a local church. Through oneFlesh, they call people to pursue a life of intimacy with God and one another. Jerome is the author of Soul Space and When God Waits. He holds a master of arts in New Testament from Columbia Biblical Seminary, and Kellie holds a master of arts in educational ministries from the same institution. The Daleys live in Greensboro, North Carolina, with their three children.