I’m combining thoughts from yesterday and today’s Psalms.

Ps. 25: 5, 21  “Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; for You I wait all the day long. …  May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you.”

Ps. 26: 8  “Oh, LORD, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells.”

Waiting.  Sometimes life seems like one waiting game after the other.  We wait for our computers to load.  We queue up for our java fix.  We wait for the ramp meter light to go green so we can hurry down and join the rest of the traffic that is … waiting to move.  We get in line at the check stand and hope there won’t be someone fumbling with his change, trying to organize her million coupons, or who picked up the one item on the shelf without its proper UPC code.  Anyone with lots of health problems knows all too well the medical waiting game, whose general rule of thumb is: the longer it takes to get an appointment in the first place, the longer you will spend sitting in the waiting room or the exam room, or both.  Pregnancy is another wait.  I kept telling God that with each pregnancy, He should cut the length of it in half.  The first one, sure, you need that 9 months to prepare, but after that?  By the time I had my fifth, I was ready to have that baby two weeks after I knew I was pregnant!  

Some of us are very good at waiting and seldom seem ruffled by having to do it, regardless of the circumstances; some of us are terrible at waiting, no matter what the wait is for; for most of us, I think, the circumstances make all the difference.   A wait we volunteer for, such as braving a long shopping line for an amazing deal on something we really want, may find us reaching the checkout with goodwill intact.  When a wait is imposed on us, such as an unexpectedly long wait at the checkout when we’re in a hurry, it’s a whole different story!  Many of us may start muttering after a matter of mere seconds.  I’ve seen people walk away from grocery carts in line because of a hitch at the checkout that went on for several minutes, saying, “This isn’t worth the wait!”  Sometimes, the difference lies in what we’re waiting for.  If we know for sure there will be plenty of food left at the buffet table by the time we get there, we don’t get nearly as impatient about waiting, but if we’re worried that they’re going to run out, anxiety sets in. 

In the Christmas story, one of the bit-part players is Anna.  We’re told that she lived with her husband for 7 years.  Assuming she was probably around 15 when she was married, that would mean she became a widow at around 22.  Being widowed so young, it wouldn’t have been surprising if she’d married again; in fact, it would have been expected.  Women had few options for supporting themselves, so marriage was generally the key to having a home to live in and food on the table.  Scripture doesn’t indicate she had any children, either, though, of course, if she had, they’d have been far too young to support her when their father died, so she’d still have had a number of years trying to keep them all fed and housed.

But she didn’t marry again.  Nor did she take up any profession, such as Lydia, the seller of purple goods.  No, for all 62 or so years of widowhood, Anna took up residence in the house of God.  Her entire life was devoted to worship, fasting and prayer there, 24/7/365.  Now, the temple was not for the Jews what our church buildings are for us.  With Christ’s coming and the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit, we ARE the habitation of the LORD, the place where His glory dwells; our churches are simply buildings where God’s Church gathers.  Before Christ’s coming, however, the temple in Jerusalem was THE building where God Himself dwelt, inhabited by the LORD in a way no other place on earth was.  Only there was the Ark of the Covenant.   Only there was the Holy of Holies.  Only there could sacrifices be made to atone for sin.  In choosing to remain at the temple night and day, Anna chose to devote her entire life to knowing her God.

In that devotion, Ann was a woman in waiting.  When she saw the Child, she “began to give thanks to God and to speak of Him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.”  The first promise of the Messiah came in Genesis, and was repeated through all the Old Testament.  The prophets at the time of the fall of Israel and Judah had reaffirmed it and had spoken of a day of salvation and redemption, but it had been some 400 years since that last recorded prophetic voice.  That salvation must have seemed an awfully long time in coming.  During the interval, some people had given up waiting, and were trying to take matters into their own hands, plotting and planning rebellion against the Roman oppressors – making their own “salvation”.  Some had given up waiting and were simply resigned to the thought that if God were even still paying attention, He just didn’t care anymore, so they were just trying to keep their heads down and ride things out.  Some, though, such as Anna and Simeon, were still waiting.  They had neither gotten impatient nor given up.  Though generations had come and gone, and though they themselves had come and might yet go, without seeing the fulfillment of God’s promise, they never stopped waiting.  They expected God to follow through on His Word, whether they lived to see it or not.

God’s promises are just as true now.  Some, such as sending the Messiah, have been fulfilled.  Others, such as the final return of the Messiah, have yet to see fruition.  Whether we understand the “why” of our wait, we should wait with patient confidence that He WILL do what He has said He will do.  The wait for God to make good on His promises is always worth it, no matter how long it takes.