By: Jarrod Johnston

I’m writing on Sunday afternoon, after a spirit filled celebration of worship this morning. The key hymn this morning to our service was Waiting Here for You, by Christy Nockels. The first stanza goes something like this:

If faith can move the mountains
Let the mountains move
We come with expectation
Waiting here for You, waiting here for You.

Six months ago, as of last Wednesday, my wife and I were in the most anxious period of waiting either of us has ever experienced—waiting on the birth of our son Wesley, who was a week late. You’ve never seen such depressed, irritable, anxious people. Of course, I wasn’t carrying the load my wife was, but even so, I was a wreck along with my wife. Doctors will tell you that the forty week due date is a rough estimate of a baby’s arrival, and most first pregnancies go a little long. We were determined to go the natural route with our pregnancy, so we weren’t going to do anything drastic to hurry Wesley/God along in the process.

In our minds, though we knew better, he was actually going to arrive in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. We had the week off of work, so of course Wesley would come at our convenience. Didn’t happen. God and Wesley knew better than we did what time would be right for the arrival. And Wesley came at just the right time for him.

Then as soon as he got here, we found ourselves waiting for other things, the firsts: smiles, laughs, rolling over, sitting up, crawling, standing … While at the same time he’s our little boy and we don’t want him to get too big, too fast. As much as we look forward to the next new thing he does, we’re anxious as he’s growing up.

Waiting is not my favorite thing. I’m not a fan. But there’s a lot of it in the life of a young adult.

Waiting to graduate college. Engagements. Pregnancies. Waiting to start a career. Holding out for the perfect job. Saving to buy a house.

What do we do with all of the waiting periods in our lives?

Our hymn of the day gives us a clue in the chorus:

… waiting here for You
With our hands lifted high in praise
And it's You we adore
Singing Alleluia!

While we wait for things to start, we praise, we pray, we learn, we grow.

While we waited for Wesley, we shopped, because we were bored. My wife and I talked, we worshipped, we ate out while we could. We were spending time waiting, but we didn’t waste that time.

Isaiah 40:31 tells us that those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength to fly, and run and not be weary. Waiting is a time to grow in our love and faith.

Question: What do you do while you wait?

See more devotions from Jarrod, and our other Young Adult writers, or find our how you can become a writer yourself at our By Young Adults for Young Adults devotion page.