My daughter is expecting her first baby any day now. Any hour really. The wait is awful. She feels antsy, unable to focus on anything except the impending birth. In her less rational moments, she wonders if labor will elude her entirely. Perhaps her body simply won’t do what it is made to do. Perhaps the baby will never come out. When I was in her state, dark clouds of doubt descended upon me as well. I found myself thinking crazy thoughts – wondering if I had imagined the whole pregnancy. Perhaps I had just gained lots of weight and made up a story to my own liking. Perhaps I had fooled everyone, including myself, and would soon be found out. I tried to reason with myself, reminding myself that I had not yet reached my due date. There was no need for despair. But when desire runs strong and hormones run high, reason struggles to reign in the course of one’s thoughts.
I prayed for my daughter this morning, asking for labor to come quickly. I prayed out of sympathy, and out of eagerness. Though I know God’s ways are better than mine, and His timing is always right, I pled my case anyway. “Do You know how hard it is for humans to wait?” I asked.
“That is why I became a man,” I heard Jesus respond in my heart. “So that I would understand you fully.”
“Yes, Lord,” I acknowledged. “I know You were a man, and You also had to wait. But You live in eternity now. It is hard for me to imagine how You remember. And You were never a woman! Do you know how hard it is to wait for a baby?”
“I am united with my Bride. I know Her completely,” He replied
“I believe that, Lord, but I don’t understand the mystery of our union. I know it is real and present, but not what it will be when You return. We must be more present to You than You seem to us. In this life we don’t feel all that You feel or think all that You think, even though we have the gift of Your Spirit. Our thoughts are usually focused on ourselves. I believe we could be far more united to You if we embraced Your Spirit more fully.”
I began to realize that waiting for Christ’s return is hard, just like waiting for a baby. It is easy to despair and to doubt. Many have given up hope, though His promise is certain. Doubting the Promise is madness. Acting as if He will never return is faithless folly. Those who do will be caught as foolish virgins, without oil on the day of the Bridegroom’s return. I know the Promise is true because I feel the Spirit within me moving and groaning, kicking like an infant int he womb. But it is hard to live in perpetual desire for a union which one has never known!
Then I felt my thoughts interrupted by our Savior’s humble, dizzying voice.
“My longing to return is greater than Yours, Amy, because My Heart is bigger than yours. You know, My love, I also wait.”