While We Wait...

"After you come into the land to which I am bringing you..." Numbers 15:17

While We Wait...
By Rev. William Dohle

Waiting...is not my favorite thing in the world to do. Of all the gifts of the spirit(Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control), I find myself praying for patience most often. Usually my prayer is...

"Lord, give me patience RIGHT NOW!"

Waiting patiently doesn't come naturally to us today. In our world of instantaneous communication and instant messages, we abhor waiting. Think about the last text message you sent where you actually had to wait. Were you thinking to yourself... "Where are they?! What's taking so long to respond!?"  Sometimes I do.

Waiting is hard in the short-run. Imagine waiting for years. Worse than that, imagine waiting for a generation!  40 years to be exact!

That's how long the people of Israel were instructed to wait before entering into the Promised Land.  When God told them "...none of the people who have seen my glory and the signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness...shall see the land that I swore to give to their ancestors..."(Numbers 14:22)  he was telling them that there's going to be a VERY long wait before the promise comes.

So...what do the people do? They start dreaming with God of what that day will be like.

"When you come into the land you are to inhabit, which I am giving you, and you make an offering by fire to the Lord from the herd or from the flock..."(Numbers 15:1-2)

Now you might read this verse and those after it and think, "How boring! It's just more laws!" But these are no simple laws. They're dreams. Dreams of what the world will be like, not for them, but for their descendants! Remember, nobody who is hearing this will be alive to see the promised land. It's out of their reach. But that doesn't mean they can't dream!

And dream they do. Twice God says, "After you come into the land to which I am bringing you..." and twice God dreams with them what that day will be like.

What dreams do you have for the future? And are they out of your grasp?

There's a story about a man who was a stonemason at one of the great cathedrals in Europe. The cathedrals themselves took almost a generation to complete. Many of the workers who began the work never saw it to completion. This stonemason was asked once what he was building. He said, "A great cathedral. Can't you see it!?" He never lived to see the cathedral completed, but he could dream of what it would look like.

We too have promised lands beyond our reach. They are places and times that we'll never physically see. What will the world be like in 2100? What do we want it to look like? We may not be alive to see it, but that doesn't mean we can't dream of it. The seeds we plant today, the dreams and the plans we make, will be ripe then. Just as the people of Israel did as they waited to enter the promised land, we too can dream of the future, put down foundations for it today, and trust God with the rest.

For the God who brought us to the border of the Promise Land will see the next generation into it and beyond.

God of Promise and Dreams, we exist in just a tiny fraction of time and space. Give us vision to look beyond ourselves and to dream of what is to come. Amen.