What's in a word?

As I said in my blog entitled Flyin’ High (January 11, 2009), my wife inspired me with her blog on selecting one word to describe yourself for the year. Unfortunately I’m a terrible picker. Sure I can pick my nose but I’ve never been able to pick a winning team (evident by my Ags), a career (evident by my resume), or my clothes (evident by my wife’s control of my wardrobe). Really the only thing I ever got right was picking a wife (I hope she agrees). From that point on she has done all the picking for me! Since she is not picking my “word of the year,” I’ve decided to pick several. I started with a list of several hundred. I think I’m down to 20 or so. To help me pick I’ve decided to blog on those that seem relevant for the day. Forgive me if I ramble. Maybe you can help me narrow them down.

WORD #1: WAIT

WAIT! Another four letter word for Christians. In a world where time is consumed like a prairie wildfire, waiting on the Lord can be excruciating. King David tells us, “Wait for the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes wait for the Lord.”

I have always struggled with patience. I was ready to pack my bags and move to Romania after my first visit in 1999. However, God made me patiently wait until fulfilling this calling in 2004. When I asked Kacee to marry me I was ready that day. I couldn’t believe it could take a year to plan a wedding. Guess I should have asked a year earlier. And when Brynlee was born I was ready to get down on the floor and play with her. It took me weeks to resolve that she was just going to take a bottle, sleep, and go to the bathroom for months.

We’ve all heard the saying, “Don’t pray for patience. God might grow you into a patient person.” I’ll be honest, I never prayed for patience, but my mother or wife or someone must have. Kacee would be the first to admit that the year we lived in Romania made me into the semi-patient man I am today.

If you were to ask me the greatest lesson I learned while living in Romania I would tell you that patience would be in my top three (remember I can’t pick). One would think this might be a jab in the face of my adopted Romanian family. On the contrary; I consider this one of the best things Romania has to offer and often long for the pace of life we lived in Romania.

When I think about waiting, as it relates to my life today, I think about God and his power. As I have said several times the last few weeks, I truly feel God stirring in my gut to do something awesome. The hard part is waiting to see what that is. Sure we all hope and long for God to do something great in our lives and there is no greater time to anticipate this than at the beginning of another year. So maybe I’m just one of “those people” waiting on God to do something amazing. Or even better; maybe I should always anticipate God doing something amazing. After all, He’s yet to disappoint.

So until He reveals His plans, or He comes back first, I will be waitin’ on the Lord. And, aspiring to new heights! Peace out.