Feb

2

Waiting is the Hardest Part

February 2, 2008 |

What would you do if you had to wait your entire life to accomplish something?  Would you?

Today is the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord - when he is taken as an infant to the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem to be presented as the first-born and consecrated to God.  Waiting there is Simeon, who had been promised by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he gazes upon the Savior.  St. Joseph and Mary carry Jesus into the temple and Simeon is able to hold the Messiah - the culmination of his life.

Would we be as patient?  We are an inpatient society - we want everything right now.  We don’t want to wait - immediate self-gratification is the name of the game.

But, I wonder what it is that God is expecting us to be patient with him.  That great things will happen if we just give him the time and the patience required for his will to play out.

Every great thing that has occured in history has been the result of a long period of hard work - the end of slavery, a woman’s right to vote, American Indepedence, getting my wife to marry me.  None of these events could have happened without a lot of hard work and patience.

I think we need to do a better job of realizing that there are going to be a lot of things in our lives that require a long period of hard work for us to be successful and for God to reveal to us his will - our families, education, careers, communities, nation.  We can’t expect everything to happen right here, right now.

Simeon understood patience.  He waited and waited and waited - and never gave up hope that God’s promise to him would  be true.  And he was rewarded in a big way.

May we have the same patience in our lives.


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