How to Thrive In Your Waiting
Sometimes our waiting leads us to a place of thriving.
I look out my office window, and my eyes brush past withering leaves crumbling around the inside of my windowsill. I can’t even keep a succulent alive. The edges of the leaves are brown and crispy, ready to break off any day now.
I love the idea of growing my own garden – a haven of bushy plants creating a hide-away for when life gets vulnerable and messy. I like the idea of a garden brimming with leaves that are green and vibrantly filled with colors. I can get lost in marveling at how something that was once a seed grew into the beautiful creation in front of me. I also love the idea of becoming a plant girl who fills her Instagram with photos of a cozy, aesthetic home and who seems to have no responsibilities other than keeping those plants alive.
However, I work full-time, my home is more cozy than it is aesthetic, and I cannot keep plants alive to save my life – not even those that require the minimum amount of effort. I love the symbolism of new life, but I always end its life. The responsibility of tending to something every day is overwhelming, and its dependency on me to keep it alive is intimidating – that’s also why I don’t have kids.
In efforts to cure my toxic ability to kill all living things around me, I set my mind to plant some flowers and look like one of those cozy plant girls. So, I bought pre-grown flowers at a farmer’s market, and I stopped by Walmart to pick up fertilizer in hopes that my three-second Google search wouldn’t do me wrong.
When I pulled into the driveway of my house, I got to work, rushing to keep the motivation while I had it. I patted the soil down and set each plant in a neat little row to look like the colors of a sunset – orange and red with a little white mixed in. Nevertheless, the doubts kept churning, “I give these a week to last under my care,” I thought.
Sometimes, it’s not all about the knowledge of plants you have, it is just about creating the right environment for the plants to grow in.
Last summer we took a family vacation to Arizona where my lips are always chapped, and my skin consistently needs lotion applied. The air is dry, but the sun is ever-present. The pale color palette and sandy terrain are not the ideal situation for green gardens and vibrant flowers. It’s not blooming with secret hideaway forests and luscious tropical escapes.
The Florida and Arizona landscapes are cases of extreme differences. One blooming with life and the other withering in decay. Life sometimes has a way of making us feel like we are one of two extremes – everything is joyfully going our way, or we feel planted in our silent cries of wanting to move forward. But we know that even the desert can spring up signs of new life, it just may look different from the luscious fields of green we dream.
When we feel caught in a waiting season, we must tend to what we want to grow.
Just as rain gives plants the nutrients to grow, waiting gives us the nutrients we need to bloom.
How do we wait well?
We can start by remembering that the prettiest plants don’t start out that way. It starts with a seed, and it takes water to nurture it.
- I think of David who trained as a shepherd before he became the conqueror of the giant, Goliath, the greatest military expert in his time, and the King of Israel. More than act as king, his faith led his people back to God, and he set the example of being a man after God’s heart.
- I think of Esther who was an ordinary teenage girl before she boldly entered the presence of the king and saved the Jewish bloodline. More than save the Jews, she reminds believers to walk boldly in the faith even when it is scary.
- I think of Joseph who was a young boy pushed down a well, sold into slavery, and placed in prison before he became second in command of Egypt. More than holding a powerful position, he extended amazing mercy to those who hurt him most and reminds us of God’s goodness to mend what is broken – even if that brokenness is ourselves.
The characters we consider to be bold leaders in the faith started in low places to grow their faith. Their seeds of faith were used to glorify the Kingdom.
The small places we wait in are the very places we can thrive in.
Waiting can feel like a dry desert where nothing grows, and water is yet to come. But even the desert plains of Arizona can bloom life. Small bushes scattered throughout the sandy plains show that, though the bare sun feels like it is wilting life, they are pushing past the challenges to bring life. In an ecosystem that otherwise promises signs of death, these little bushes offer hope of life in the middle of a dry desert.
How to grow in your season
There are so many times I have complained about where I am and cried my questions of “why.” Grades in school may look hopeless, our plans may go to trash, and we may not have the career we thought we wanted. God has prepared so much more than the isolated desert you feel lost in! He has prepared a life blooming with His love and grace.
We must tend to what we want to grow, spending time to nurture it. Just like it takes work to grow living plants, we are living beings who need to be planted in the Word of God and watered by His truth. We bloom into our full potential when we are nurturing our time with the Lord who planted us where we are and wants to see us bloom.
What I plant in private blooms in public.
As people work to nurture and protect plants, we must do the same in our relationship with God. We must put in the work to know Him and cultivate a relationship that grows with Him.
When we strive for sanctification, that is, when we strive to be more like Christ, we do more than survive, we thrive! When we immerse ourselves in a community of people who nourish and refresh us; when we soak in the Truth as we read our Bible; when we stand in the truth of the Word of God because we are spending time with Him, not neglecting time from Him, these are the things that nurture!
The landscapes may change but the journey remains the same. We are to keep holding onto the hope and restoration we find ONLY in Christ. It’s that new life that God promises to bring forth to us. You may be in the desert season, but there is new life coming.
Our waiting will not be wasted. He hears us even in the desert, under the heat and pressure. He is life in the desert and hope in the wilderness. He is the God who created all things, and because He is our Creator, He is our Provider. When He provides, we know that our seasons of waiting are not to leave us in a place that is dry but to bloom with new LIFE in Him!
