Waiting. Waiting, waiting, and–you guessed it–more waiting. Even before the coronavirus quarantine hit us, I was feeling as though life consisted of more waiting than pretty much anything else. Now, like most of the rest of the world, we are finding ourselves cooped up. All of our normal activities, and a lot of our income, are canceled. We are fighting to keep ourselves productive, occupied, and emotionally healthy while we, yes, WAIT for this storm cloud to pass.
Late Night Astronomy Field Trip
One night with a new moon, during the annual April Lyrids meteor shower, we drove to the outskirts of the city to some meteor watching. It didn’t matter much if the kids were out late. They wouldn’t be going anywhere the next day, as was usual by this point. I was hopeful that Idaho would be better than Virginia for meteor watching.
Unbeknownst to us, our son had thrown our camera and tripod in the car. We originally had no intention of taking any pictures of the night sky. But he had different plans.
We sat in an empty parking lot for quite awhile with nothing. Then our son got out the tripod and asked to take some pictures. Damien reluctantly set up the camera and starting playing around with the settings to allow enough light in for an attempt. The first several shots failed, but after awhile he had some success with shooting the night sky.
We never saw any meteors while watching the sky and came home deflated–until we started examining the shots we took more closely.
Eureka
The reality was we were surrounded by meteors in the night sky, but without our being aware. It was not too surprising we had missed them considering we were still within the limits of suburban light pollution. However, it was no less shocking to see photographic evidence of what our naked eye missed entirely.
What we had come out there to see was happening all along, just imperceptible to our senses.
God’s Timing
I don’t know about you, but this observation resonates strongly with my present circumstances, and also many past ones. God has a timing in our circumstances, which we don’t control. In that timing He will choose to make many hidden things visible.
At any given moment, we can only see a small, minuscule portion of the whole picture of our lives. It may sometimes seem (just speaking for myself here) that God is not “doing” anything. He is, many times, a behind-the-scenes God who is never in a rush. He’s never trying to hurry circumstances along–often to my chagrin!
But every now and then He’ll give me a glimpse that He’s still there and still working. And at a time of His choosing, His purposes and assignments for me will become visibly manifest in a gloriously obvious way.
For you, too.
Until then the waiting continues, with the oftentimes blind faith walk that accompanies it.