Dealing with the Downtime: A Perspective on Periods of Waiting by Juhyae Kim
Nothing sucks the life out of me as much as
waiting for something important to happen. My life often feels like succession of wait after wait: waiting for the weekend, waiting for job and internships offers, waiting for a family member’s health to recover, waiting to graduate—the list goes on. And even when I’m not waiting for something specific—when I’m routinely going through life—I’m still eager for the next exciting thing to come up. However, most of life is a downtime during which nothing particularly exciting happens. This becomes frustrating since I always have the desire to take the next step towards building a more purposeful future, but if nothing’s propelling my life forward, how can I feel at peace? And more specifically, how do I as a Christian respond with faith to these grueling periods of waiting? In coming to a clearer understanding of how to deal with the smaller instances of waiting in life, I found it vital to remember that the Christian life is a life of waiting. From the moment Christians declare faith in God, they are waiting to reunite with him, whether that is through Christ’s return or through their earthly death and heavenly entrance. Like the Psalmist who cries out about how his “whole being waits…for the Lord, more than watchmen wait for the morning,”1 Christians eagerly wait for the day they will meet God in heaven. When I recognized the parallel between that lifelong wait and my shorter periods of waiting, things seemed less daunting and frustrating. But before I draw the parallel, I want to expand on what the wait for Jesus’ second coming looks like. This lifelong wait is not a passive one; it’s an active one. As a Christian, I have the mission of doing what God commands in his Word, not because my efforts will bring about the result that God wants—he has the power to do all—but because I know the outcome: Christ “will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”2 Consider Jesus’ parable of the ten virgins. He says, “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins
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who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps.”3 The virgins do not know exactly when the bridegroom is set to arrive, but the wise ones prepare well regardless by bringing with them oil for the lamp in anticipation for his arrival. They wait thoughtfully and actively. Imagine that a precious guest—someone who always keeps their word and loves you unconditionally—has promised to come to your house for dinner. And suppose they asked you to do certain things in preparation for their coming. Would you lounge around and neglect those requests? Would you wring your hands in anxiety, doubting that this faithful and loving guest would actually show up? Most likely not. Yet that is what I see myself, and often other Christians, doing when we become anxious about how the world and our lives are developing. Of course, no one knows when the second coming will be, and that makes it more difficult to wait for. But regardless, the promise was made by a faithful God. And I demonstrate my lack of trust by trying to think of backup plans and appealing to human strength to guide my life, especially when I’m anxiously waiting for something. This is not to belittle the realities and fears of life. God designed people to have emotional reactions to tragic, frightening, upsetting situations, and it is right to abhor the consequences of sin in this world. In that sense, anxiety is a legitimate emotion. But in Scripture, people who trust God’s promises turn to him in their anxiety rather than sitting on it and letting it consume them.4 Given this perspective of active, obedient waiting for the entirety of life, it becomes clear how I should respond to shorter periods of waiting in my day to day life. The same perspective applies: it’s an active wait where I prepare myself for whatever God has in store. I can do this by consistently praying to have the right mindset, seeking guidance and examples in Scripture, and communicat-
