“Your flight has been delayed”...
We arrived at the airport looking forward to sinking our feet into warm sugary sand later that day. As delay notices popped up, a hum of nervous conversation floated through the departure gate area. While waiting, I quietly calculated how late the incoming flight could be to still allow us to make our connection. We’ll make it.
As time ticked by and the possibility of ‘making it’ drifted away, I felt myself coming undone. My body may have been seated, but my mind and spirit were spinning. In my head, I wrung my hands and paced frantically while thinking up all the ways air travel could be improved, as if ruminating would make a plane and pilot magically appear. Then came the announcement: Flight cancelled. And that was that. As we made the four-hour drive to catch a plane scheduled to depart the next day, I pondered how poorly I had navigated the whole event.
Since then I’ve noticed the many (almost daily) opportunities I’m given to wait. I’m often so fixed and focused on what’s at the end of the delay, I’ve been blind to the possibility that what I’ve called an annoyance may be more of a gift. The Spirit has gently reminded that if I cannot wait well in smaller matters, I likely won’t do so in weightier situations.
Not long ago I stumbled across a scene tucked between two more well-known events in the life of Elijah. It was a time of severe drought and famine in Samaria—not a drop of water had fallen in over three years. The LORD sent word that He would send rain (1 Kings 18:1). After an altar-building contest between Elijah and the prophets of Ba’al ends in an awe-inspiring display of the LORD’s power and victory (see 18:20-40), we find Elijah on a mountaintop.
“... And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; then he bowed down on the ground, and put his face between his knees, and said to his servant, ‘Go up now, look toward the sea.’ So he went up and looked, and said ‘There is nothing.’ And seven times [Elijah] said, ‘Go again.’ Then it came to pass the seventh time, that [his servant] said, ‘There is a cloud, as small as a man’s hand, rising out of the sea!’
(1 Kings 18:41-44, NKJV)
I imagine what the hike along dry terrain might have been like as Elijah and his servant ascended. I wonder what was said. Or, were they silent? I consider the name “Carmel” —how it’s derived from a Hebrew word meaning “vineyard.” As the prophet bowed low, his garments falling in folds onto dusty earth, did he sense a faint smell of smoke from flames that had devoured every ounce of wood and water and stone just a short time before? Did his servant grow weary in looking for rain? Or, did his master’s faith encourage him along?
I’ve been waiting for a long time for something in particular. How about you, my friend? Are you, too, waiting for the ‘rain’ to come? Has it felt like forever? Have weeks and months or even years passed with no ‘rain’ in sight?
Our culture has conditioned us not to wait well, would you agree? In fact, it seems we’re being taught not to wait at all. The good news is that we’re not at the mercy of the world’s way of waiting or not waiting. There is another way.
I invite you to look again at the verses and linger here for a moment:
