"Watching and [ACTIVE] waiting, looking above..."

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“Perfect submission, all is at rest,

I in my Savior am happy and blest,

Watching and waiting, looking above,

Filled with His goodness, lost in His Love!”

Frances J. Crosby, Blessed Assurance

Have you ever been told the phrase “A watch-pot never boils!” ? My mom used to say it to me all the time; especially when company was coming over! I used to sit by the window eagerly hoping that every passing car would be our visitors. To be honest though, I never really understood that expression until I starting cooking.

When it was nearing time for supper, mom would call me out to the kitchen and she would talk me through one of the night’s dishes while she prepared the rest of the meal. It was during those moments, while I was literally waiting for water to boil, that I would hang on her every word. She would tell me what to add next to her infamous gravy, or what a proper substitution for shortening would be when greasing a pan. As I got older, I was given more responsibilities in making the meal. Now I am fully capable of preparing the entire dinner on my own. I must say, when you have 3 pots cooking away on the stove, a dish or 2 in the oven, and possibly an item or so more on separate cutting boards across the counters, there isn’t much time to watch and wait for something to boil. I have to constantly be moving forward with the meal plan, knowing eventually that stubborn pot will bubble and hoping that it’s just in time to pull the whole meal together.

You know, last time we talked about surrendering to God and resting in His perfect plan. There isn’t too much that is more terrifying and yet completely satisfying as when we raise our hands to God and say “it’s in Your hands now, I give up!” These are the moments when, like a little girl watching her momma cook, we stand by our God and hang on His every Word. We cling to every morsel He says and, in that moment, we watch and wait for our own proverbial water to boil.

There certainly are those instances in our lives where we just have to “Be still and know (recognize, understand) that I am God.” [Psalm 46:10 AMP] Yet I believe that there are moments, forks-in-the-road, where we have to be more like the girl with 15 things going on at once. Sometimes the Lord doesn’t want us to just wait-it-out. Instead, He asks us to tend to the dishes in the oven, or the ingredients on the counter AS WE WAIT for that one pot to boil. This is what I mean when I say “Active Waiting”.

Let’s Pause For A Moment

Ruth is one of my favorite Bible accounts. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s a biblical love story, or that it’s only 4 chapters long, either way, I really like it! (Read it here.) Anyway, Ruth is also a great example of active waiting. For those that aren’t as familiar with her book, I’ll summarize. Ruth was not an Israelite. She was a gentile from an entire other city, but she married one of God’s Chosen People after his family moved to her home town. It wasn’t long until her husband, father-in-law, AND brother-in-law all died and she was left with a grieving sister-in-law and mother-in-law (not to mention herself!). Her beloved mother-in-law, Naomi, decided that with nothing left, it was time to go home. Ruth’s sister-in-law easily moved on, but Ruth didn’t. Even though that, at this point, Ruth didn’t know the God of Naomi, she was still stuck in this water-boil waiting game. She could’ve easily threw her hands out screaming “HOLD ON!” and just froze until she had everything figured out. I think we’d all relish doing that once in a while. However, Ruth didn’t freeze. She didn’t even pause. She just pressed forward, blindly following Naomi, placing her hope in a foreign, unfamiliar God that everything would unfold for her, and Naomi’s, best interests. Ruth was an active waiter.

Apply It

Sometimes God asks us to play a game of follow the leader. Remember those? One friend was the “leader” and everyone else followed behind exactly copying that leader’s every move. I played this often as a child. I don’t, however, remember ever quitting the game just because I didn’t know what was coming next. That was the whole point! We just followed the leader. God is our leader (at least He SHOULD be!) and He, well, leads. We are the followers and our job is to follow. That’s it! We just follow. Sometimes we’ll know what’s coming next, more often than not we won’t have a clue, but that doesn’t change our role as a follower. We still have to walk behind Him copying His every move. We need to be active in our waiting. Jumping back to that verse from the hymn in the very beginning, “Watching and waiting, looking above, Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.” That basically sums it all up. Just the verbs alone tell us to ‘watch’, ‘wait’, ‘look’, get ‘filled’, get ‘lost’, OH and get moving!

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
 –Martin Luther King Jr.