The Worth of the Wait

I had reached the point that I normally come to when dealing with potted rosemary. The plant was drying up and dying, and I knew I’d have to replace it soon. But then a friend came over and spoke of how hardy and drought resistant rosemary was. We soon came to the conclusion that I had actually been over watering the thing. I just needed to back off a bit and give it time.

Another friend came over about a week later, and as we stood on the back patio while her young children blew bubbles, she took one look at my rosemary and exclaimed that she hoped I wouldn’t throw it out, affirming that it would grow back over time.

Many weeks have passed since those two conversations now, and the lifeless sprigs have started to turn green again, much to my delight. As I continue to watch the plant and give it the time and space it needs, I’m left here wondering how many other times I’ve over watered different aspects of my life, thinking that I could somehow force those things to life when my actions only brought death to each area instead.

Almost everything I’ve ever deeply desired in life has brought with it the temptation to over water in some way. The longer I wait for certain things to come to pass, the easier it is to give into fear. I start to wonder if God is holding out on me, and my flesh tries to trick my mind into believing that perhaps God isn’t so good to me after all.

If I allow those fears to take root in my heart, the over watering begins. I seek to try to control my circumstances by manipulating them however I can.  But the truth is, we can never really control our circumstances, can we? Over watering any situation won’t bring about the desired outcome. If anything, it hinders the process of purification that God would bring about in our own lives through the waiting, and it easily hinders any progress toward the desired object as well.

God really began to teach me a lot about the worth of waiting when I was single. I didn’t meet JJ until I was 34, so I had a lot of practice waiting (and hoping) for God to bring me a godly mate, but I had very little understanding of the worth of it all up until a few months before meeting JJ. Throughout the months leading up to meeting him, I kept thinking about fruit trees and how long that process can be for a sapling to start to produce fruit. It can take years before a fruit tree brings forth its first harvest, and the fruit tree owner must put in the effort to keep the tree alive and growing, all the while holding onto faith that his hard work will come to fruition someday. Nonetheless, all the work and waiting is worth it in the end with that first bite of fresh fruit, and the payoff is even sweeter knowing that the fruit tree will continue to produce fruit in the years to come.

Fruit trees just don’t produce fruit in a day. But they can produce perseverance and patience and a deeper faith of the end result in the farmer each day, and in my own seasons of waiting, God has shown me how He wants to produce many of those same things in my own life as I wait. He has wanted to bless me richly, not just with an end result (and maybe not even with the end result at all), but with what the process of waiting would produce in me.

Ironically, when JJ and I were dating, I compared our relationship to a rosemary plant, much like the one I have now. I had one on my kitchen counter at the time, and I knew that I needed to tend to JJ’s and my relationship like I did that plant. Both would take time to grow, and I needed to be patient, just like I need to with the potted rosemary plant on my patio right now.

Much of life requires time in order for us to see growth, and it also requires the right amount of effort on our part as we trust that God is bringing about the progress that He desires for our lives. Some things just can’t be rushed. But most importantly, our seasons of waiting require us to trust that God is doing something far greater in us as we wait—He is in the process of producing spiritual fruit in us—fruit that will last for the years to come. And that, my friend, is worth the wait.

For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.”

Psalm 84:11 ESV