Yesterday I had a new experience. I was included in a three-hour virtual retreat, mostly silent, with a handful of people scattered across the US and even one precious couple in Peru. I didn’t really know what to expect, but it was beautiful and timely.
The theme of the retreat was “hope.” I entered that time and space not feeling particularly void of hope. Even though these are times that can cause us to run short on hope, I felt my tank was still pretty full. But by the end of that short three hours, I was filled to overflowing with the reality of hope because my focus turned to the Person of hope, not the substance.
The soft voice of our facilitator, the vulnerability of the others in the retreat, the readings, the hymns, the silence, the prayers, all those things set up the altar. But it was the Word – one simple verse – that lit the fire for me.
“But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.” Micah 7:7 NASB
The facilitator made some remarks that are still germinating in my heart today. But it was the time of silence that had the most impact. Focused silence.
Prior to the invitation to silence, the facilitator read the scripture above in the Lectio Divina style of slow reading. We were to watch and listen for the word or phrase that the Holy Spirit would draw our attention toward. For me, the word was “wait.”
Who likes to wait? I have never heard anyone say that they enjoy waiting. I was a tiny bit resistant to having this be “my” word…but who really wants to argue with the Holy Spirit, once you’ve come to realize He knows what He’s doing? So, I sat with it. During this time, I was shown that waiting is really about holding space. Reserving a seat. Marking time.
When I think about holding space, I recall several times that my husband asked me for help with a home project or mechanical endeavor. Usually, all he needed was for me to hold something out of the way so he could do the work. I didn’t need to know the details of what he was doing, I just trusted that he knew and that there would be a good result.
When I reserve a seat for someone who is going to join me at an event, I envision the intimacy of the shared experience. It’s almost as if the empty seat holds anticipation that having this seat filled with someone I know will be an enhancement.
In high school, I played 1st clarinet in the marching band. If you’ve ever performed in a choreographed production, you understand the meaning of marking time. You are standing still, moving your feet, but going nowhere. You are holding space for someone else to be moving, which makes the performance whole and dynamic. You are static, but something beautiful is happening.
When it comes to my personal life, even though I spend a good amount of time in quiet reflection, holding space is still challenging for me much of the time. Yesterday as I reflected on this word, “wait,” God showed me what I am to hold space from: control, fixing, fretting, escaping, fearing….I filled up an entire page around the big word I put in the middle of my page: WAIT.
So I asked him, what do I need in order to help me wait well? The answer for me was “trust.” Since nature hates a void, it’s super easy for me to fill up the space meant for waiting with working, fixing, controlling, dreading…. But if I fill that space with trust, I find just what I need to help me hold back the flood of racing thoughts, rising emotions, and well-meaning action.
Who or what I trust is the key here. If I trust my bank account or my ability to provide, my president, medical science, social media or my own understanding, I might fill that waiting space with something that does not help.
Here is where going back to the scripture that we were contemplating helped me. “I will watch…for the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation….”
LORD in all caps in the Bible refers to the personal name of God: “Jehovah.” In Girdlestone’s Old Testament Synonyms, the author speaks of the name “Jehovah” as the supreme expression of the personality of God:
“God’s personal existence, the continuity of His dealings with man, the unchangeableness of His promises, and the whole revelation of His redeeming mercy gathers around the name Jehovah.”
That’s a name and a person I can trust! Sometimes my trust runs very low, but as our facilitator made clear yesterday, trust is a byproduct of hope, and we have the seed of hope living within us in the form of Jesus Christ, himself! I will never be without hope. And if there is hope, there is a capacity for trust.
We were invited yesterday to respond to what God was saying to us through our word. My response came in the form of a drawing. I drew a cup with the word “wait” on it. I offered this up to the LORD, humbly asking for the trust I need in order to hold this cup empty for His filling, not my own.
Sometimes we have a full cup we need to offer to Him - a cup filled with suffering or sorrow. As we lift that particular cup up to Him, we can watch and wait for His blessing over it. A blessing that does not guarantee the contents won’t be bitter, but that the fellowship of His suffering can be sweet.
So much more I could say here. I am still digesting that brief experience yesterday, and I believe I will for quite some time. I will leave you with this question: “What are you watching? And how are you waiting?