Waiting Room

The smallest gesture or briefest word can cause attention at the poker table, especially when you're in the middle of a hand.  Players are looking for "tells" of any kind, or doing "reads" to determine what you really have and how they should respond.

We wonder if that made a difference in the hand we mentioned in our last post.  A pause of about two seconds  before checking with quad Kings resulted in an opponent going all-in --then we "insta-called" to make a big gain.

The Bible offers many examples where moments of waiting led to amazing results.  We'll offer one; perhaps you can think of others....

So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick".... Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days. - John 11:3, 6

Jesus was healing people all over the "Holy Land" region.  So why didn't He rush to the aid of Lazarus?  The Lord gave a hint to His disciples....

So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.  But let us go to him." - John 11:14-15

Jesus suggests He wanted to drive home a point to the disciples.  And a few days later, He made that point before a large crowd of witnesses.

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"  The dead man came out.... Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. - John 11:43-45

By waiting until Lazarus was dead and entombed, Jesus displayed His miraculous powers.  In the arts, that sort of wait is called a "dramatic pause."  God seems to have more in store, before Jesus comes again....

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained.  They cried in a loud voice, "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" - Revelation 6:9-10

It occurred to us this week that today's living believers should put themselves under that altar.  Many of them want Jesus to return with judgment and vengeance, too.  But read on....

When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. - Revelation 8:1

God's timeline seems unaffected by human pleading.  But Revelation goes on to show Jesus will come again. Soon.  We don't know how soon, but soon.  In the meantime, follow the advice of a psalmist:

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. - Psalm 130:5

(P.S.  We faced our own 15-minute wait as we wrote this entry, due to Internet connection problems.  Waiting isn't easy there, either -- but wait we did.)