Waiting Expectantly?

I was listening to the radio this weekend and the announcer was reading from a devotional. It was about waiting so of course my ears perked up. I can’t remember it word for word, I wish I could but the author was writing as if God was talking directly to her. He was telling her to wait on Him means to wait expectantly.

The words really struck me. What does it mean to wait expectantly? I have been pondering this for the past few days. How does one wait expectantly?

The more I thought about it the more confused I got. I mean expectantly well that is closely related, in my mind to expectations. I just wrote about expectations. Expectations can lead to trouble. I am certain the Lord does not want me to have expectations; He has seen me in action. I don’t always do so good setting realistic expectations.

So I typed in expectantly in dictionary.com and it used the word expect, and expectant in the definition. I really dislike when they use the word you are looking up in the definition. If you knew what it meant you would not be looking it up.

I decided to do a little word study from the bible. It turns out that expectantly waiting is in two verses in the NIV. Luke 13:15 and Job 29:21. Expectantly in both verses means to wait, hope, expect. I found that interesting. I then looked up verses with expect. It was interesting that many, not all, of the New Testament verses that have expect in them are referring to Jesus whether He is the expected savior or when He will come back.

Then this thought kind of hit me. We don’t know when Jesus is coming back, but we are supposed to be ready because it can be any time. We expect that He will come back. It doesn’t consume out lives. Although, maybe it is suppose to?

For me any way the thing that struck me was that they are waiting, hoping, looking for it to happen. It could happen at any moment. But their expectantly waiting has not taken over their lives.

For me I have to say waiting, has at times, not always, but much more than I would like, has consumed my thoughts. I am in no way saying my adoptwaiting is anything like waiting for the saviors return. I am saying it was challenging for me to think about. To wait with hope without losing heart what does that look like? I am unsure.

In one of my devotional books Streams in the Desert they author was comparing desperation and despair. Saying many times people have been in desperate situations. They talked of Shadrach, Meshach and Adendnego. They were in a desperate situation, about to be thrown in a furnace. In Dan 3: 17-18 they said, “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and He will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if He does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." But even if He does not…. those words may be desperate but they are not despairing.

Yet, I wonder if they might have felt a little despairing. It does not discuss their feelings. What did they do with those? I know they had to have them. I think that is the complicating thing about waiting expectantly. The feelings. My head can know the truth, but my heart is not always listening to my head. Maybe that is the difference between desperate and despairing. Having a heart that listens to your head? I think I need to ponder this a little bit longer.