Hey, wait for me!

On my way to work today, I looked to my left and saw a city bus at it's stop. As I turned right, I saw a tiny asian lady running frantically towards the bus, and still maybe 100 yards away. I was thinking "she'll never make it", and I looked in my rear-view, expecting the bus to drive off and the lady to be left in a frazzled mess of bags and disappointment.

But then, something unexpected happened. The bus didn't move. The lady began moving even faster, as she realized that the bus was going to wait. You could almost see the hope in every step... although she was still quite frantic.

Now, while all of this was happening, "How He Loves" was loudly resonating inside my car. You can't listen to that song and drive without being amazed at how He loves each and every person you see. I started thinking about how it feels when someone waits for you... how being waited for makes you feel wanted, and special, and loved.

God waited for me. He waited through my yelling and my anger and my cursing the idea of being up early on a Sunday Morning. He waited for me to get past the problems that followed me wherever I went, to see past my broken world to the one who could fix it. He waited because He loved me, because He knew that more than anything, I needed Him to take on what life had thrown at me. He loved me, fathered me, and gave me an identity.

But how many times do we get impatient with Him, and run off to do our own thing? We are like children, thinking that our parents are moving too slow, running forward toward something that looks super cool, and suddenly realizing that we are lost, crying out to be found. A few things begin to hurt us (shape us, grow us), and we want to throw in the towel and condemn God for abandoning us. We suck at waiting.

Still, He loves us. He waits for us, because He's seen this before. He knows that we will learn, that one day we will thank Him for how He used that dark night to shape us. He knows that soon we will come to the end of ourselves, come to our senses, and come running back into His arms. He knows this, because we are His children and His creation, and He is our Savior and Creator and Father.

So He's still waiting, and it's not a sign of weakness. Impatience is weakness. Patience is strength, and His strength is limitless. So is His love. Are you the one He's waiting for?