Ever Wonder Why?: Why Does Waiting Feel Like Wasted Time?

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

Thanks for joining us for this week's Real Life Church Podcast. We'd love to know if God is using this ministry to bless you in some way, and if you'd like to share your story or get connected at Real Life Church, you can visit us online at livereallife.com.

SPEAKER_2 (0:17)

Let's pray. Father, we love you. Thank you for today. Thank you for the giving hearts to your people. That Lord, when we bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that Lord God, we put you first in all things. You said we seek first the kingdom of God. All these things will be added unto us, and we thank you for that today, that you would make us a window of heaven, that Lord God, you would be able to pour resources out through us, that we might be a blessing to many, and many people will come into the kingdom because of it. So we thank you for it. We love you. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. Can you give the Lord a good hand clap this morning? Come on, as we hop into his word today.

And today we're continuing our series Ever Wonder Why, and we're just taking some questions. We want to answer them scripturally. I'm not trying to be over arching deep questions. Yeah, we'll get into some deep questions. But James did a great job last week setting the series up. And today, I'm going to continue our series. And how many of you like waiting? Anybody like waiting? Nobody raises their hands when it comes to waiting. I was just on a flight. We were on vacation last week. Went to, we camp when we go on vacations. Went camping, and we came back Sunday. I flew out Monday morning to go down to a meeting in Florida. And on my way back on Wednesday, my flight got delayed. I don't like the word delay. I don't like, I'll fly the plane if we need it. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't like delay. I don't like having a 330 doctor's appointment and not getting into the room until 415 Waiting, it drives me crazy. I don't like waiting. I'm not a waiter. I'm not wait. I don't wait. I don't like wait. I will go off road in traffic. Amen. I-75 has, it really works on my sanctification and my salvation, and I just don't like to wait. I'm not a waiter. I don't like to wait around. I don't like to wait on things. Red lights, if they'd let me run them, I'd run them. Come on somebody. I just don't like to wait. You're like, pastor, you seem impatient. Whatever I may be, I am.

You know, screens. You know, today we live in a world of screens. Have you ever been on your computer and that little thing just keep going, yeah, this little thing, it's not working, or your phone, it's updating. It takes forever to update. Just waiting in general. And I think this is why a lot of people hate waiting is we hate delay. We've been wired inside of us to hate delay. You go to a restaurant today, you're like, I'm starving, I'm hangry, I'm yelling at people in my family. Can you please bring the chicken fried steak? Somebody, Jesus, please bring it. Do I need to go back and make it? I mean, it's been seven and a half minutes since I ordered it for the love of God. I mean, you know what I'm saying? Like, we can't wait. We struggle to wait. And I honestly think that it has a lot as you take it into your life, that we have seasons of life, and we go through certain things in our life, and if we're not careful, what begins to happen is, I think there's a deeper meaning behind our hating or our being wired for delay, is there's a deeper meaning behind it, and it's that we get impatient with seasons. We go through seasons in our life where we're not seeing exactly what we think we should be seeing. And so we get impatient at things. Maybe you're waiting on a job. Maybe you need a healing. Maybe you're believing in God for your kids to know the Lord, or maybe you're single in the room and you want to get married and get married. Amen.

You know, maybe you're just waiting around. Praise the Lord, we'll save that for a family playbook. Anyway, just waiting. And it's like, it's something that in our lives, that we become impatient. And I ask myself this question, and I ask you this question, why does the in-between feel so unbearable at times? Where we have this thought and this progress and this promise that we want, and we want to see things happen in our life, then we ask these questions, and then over here, it's not going at the speed that we want, and in the middle of it, it just feels like it can be unbearable. And if we go a little bit deeper into our soul, really, here's what I think that we're ultimately saying is when we're going through these waiting seasons, is it really, in here, we may not say it out of our mouth, but in here, we're saying, God, you forget me? Have you forgotten about me? Yeah, hello, I'm down here, are you, hello? Like we go through these seasons, and it's the deeper ache of our soul is, God, have you forgotten me? Like I'm going through this stuff, I'm experiencing these things in life, and I wanna know, have you ever, have you forgotten me? Well, I'm gonna read in John chapter 11 today, I'm gonna read just a summary of these passages, and it's about Lazarus.