Posted by Rodetta Cook

Rodetta Cook has been a pastor’s wife for over 40 years. She and her husband, Ron, have actively served the Lord together in ministry during the entire time and are co-founders of Care for Pastors. She understands the expectations, loneliness and how hard it is to find balance in ministry as a pastor’s wife. Rodetta also leads the pastor’s wives initiative at Care for Pastors called The Confidante and ministers to hundreds of wives each week. She strives to share blogs with other pastors’ wives that will help them in their ministry walk.

Posted by Rodetta Cook

Topics: For Pastors' Wives · Spiritual Walk

Waiting Well

Monday, December 14, 2020

Today one of our Confidante Team members, Christy Kirtlan is sharing on a subject that none of us like, “waiting.”

Waiting….drumming fingers on a table….pacing back and forth…checking and rechecking the time….humming….sighing…..scrolling through your phone…..

We don’t wait well.

Our culture teaches us to expect immediate gratification. Drive-thru service. Rapid pick up. We do not even wait for a story to load on our phones, we move on to something else. Attention spans no longer span. We want it now.

But the principle of waiting is still here, no matter how we try to change it, or speed it up.

You still have to wait 9 months for a baby to be born. You still must wait until you are of age to drive (legally). The farmer still must wait for the seeds to become the plants he will harvest.

“All things come to those who wait.” (Violet Fane, 1892 and endlessly repeated)

When did waiting become such a bad thing?

Jesus knew from His beginning that He was the Savior of the world but His ministry didn’t begin until he was about 30 years old. How hard would it have been to know this and yet wait until God’s timing was right? Even so, His mother tried to get Him to reveal Himself during the wedding feast in Cana where He turned water into wine, but His response? From John 2: On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and His disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother said to Him, “They have no more wine.” “Woman, why does this concern us?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

Jesus knew how to wait well. And, if we pay attention, He taught us by His example how to wait well. We try to do lots of other things the way Jesus did, why should we exclude this?

When Lazarus was dying and Jesus waited 4 days to go to Bethany where Lazarus lived, He knew Lazarus’ death would glorify God. Many times, in Scripture, we are told that Jesus went off to a solitary place to pray…while He waited. Jesus spoke to and encouraged strangers…while He waited. Jesus worked as a carpenter…while He waited.

We have these promises from God while we wait….

The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Wait Well.

– Christy

I pray what Christy shared with us today will resonate in our hearts and minds and we will slow down and learn to wait.