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Waiting

Some time ago, I went into a bank and had to pay a cheque in (I know, how 20^th Century of me) and the bank employee said to me “You’ll have to wait for 5 days before you can access that money, is that ok?”  And because I was feeling particularly facetious on that day, instead of the normal British polite reply of ‘Yes that’s fine’ I replied with ‘What happens if I say no, that’s not ok’ And the bank employee just said ‘Nothing, it won’t make any difference, it will still take 5 days to clear, is that ok?’.

And remembering that small transaction just got me thinking about waiting and it also got me thinking about waiting on God as well.  Its clear that the bank staff have been told that because of the cheque system, that they need to apologise profusely for how long it takes for money to appear in accounts.  I don’t know whether any of you have ever been in establishments where servers have apologised for not instantly bringing you whatever you have asked for.  But it got me thinking about the role of chaplaincy and how often chaplains wait with people and how often that society thinks there is something wrong with having to wait.  Healthcare chaplaincy teams across the country wait with people who are waiting for the outcome of tests.  They wait with people who are waiting for a package of care to be sorted.  We wait with people who are waiting to see doctors, nurses, therapists and other health professionals.  And when we are waiting with people, we can sometimes see God in the wait.  I’m fairly certain, within churches there are plenty of people who are waiting not only for healthcare outcomes, but for all sorts of different things.  Still, we get frustrated over delays and having to wait.

And yet, we are asked to wait patiently on the Lord.  Psalm 40 says ‘I waited patiently for the Lord, he turned to me and heard my cry’.  The disciples had to wait for Jesus to appear in locked rooms, they also had to wait for the Holy Spirit to come and even Easter itself, involved waiting during Holy Saturday.  Don’t get me wrong whilst you are in that waiting period, time seems to drag and it is frustrating and at times disheartening and sometimes its only when you are on the other side, can you see the necessity of the wait itself.

A patient who I see regularly because she has chronic Crohn’s disease (a horrible disease of the digestive system) is waiting to see whether anything can be done for her and at home waits to see  when her digestive system behaves or doesn’t behave itself.  When I saw her last she said something somewhat profound to me.  She said that as Christians we are all ‘prisoners of hope’ and I think I know what she means.  We wait because we know the outcome, we have the hope that God will listen to us and hear our cry and so what I would say to us all, is that if anyone asks you is it ok to wait.  Then sometimes and actually more often than not it is, because God will be in that wait.

This week’s thought was written by Rev Lee Gilbert, Chaplain at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Kings Lynn

Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash