Thoughts on Waiting
If you have been writing for any length of time, then you already know about the challenges of waiting.
- “Thanks for sending me your poem! I’ll try to read it next week.”
- “I’m sorry I didn’t get a change to look at your story yet.”
- “If you haven’t heard from us in 60 days, consider it a pass.”
Whether you have built a thriving career or you write as a hobby with no plans to go pro, the moment in time you release your work to another person’s review begins the wait. The wait for a reaction. For feedback. For criticism – or praise. It is an integral part of the business and craft of writing, and there is no denying that it is hard. Distraction often serves as a second-rate cure for the slowness of time spent waiting.
The Christian writer hears it from all sides. Wait on the Lord. Wait on your critique partner or editor. Wait on the submission process. The stance of passive waiting wears on a person because waiting is a surrender of control and influence. Waiting, like faith, requires submitting to a power not your own, flexing the same weak trust muscle used in giving up on self-reliance and placing faith in an unseen God. The Christian writer might well ask, if my readers don’t want passive writing, then does my God want passive living?
Dozens of verses in Scripture address waiting. When we think about waiting, we often focus on the passage of some gap of time, but the word has a larger meaning that is available to us. If we choose, then to wait is to expect. In my Bible, the word wait is occasionally footnoted as hope. Isaiah 40:31 promises, “Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary,” and Psalm 119: 147 reads, “I rise before dawn and cry for help; I wait for Your words.” These verses discuss hopeful waiting, expectant waiting, and naturally, we act and expect based on what we earnestly believe to be true. In faith and in waiting, believing is an active choice, not a passive one.
You can’t wait faster, but you can wait better. Whether you are waiting for divine guidance or feedback on a short article, you have a choice between bemoaning slow time or keeping your eyes on the hope of how God plans to bless you or teach you through both the time and the outcome.
