Welcome,
Friend,
To the gift of sacred rest,
The Lenten season.
I'm Tonya Murphy of Rest in His Presence.
And this week,
We will focus on the rest of waiting.
Take a moment before we begin,
A breath,
A pause,
An arrival.
Let your body settle.
Feel the surface beneath you.
Let your spine lengthen gently,
Your chest open,
Your hands rest soft.
Breathe in slowly and out completely.
And again.
Today we're going to sit with one of the hardest spiritual practices there is,
Waiting.
Not waiting with answers,
But waiting with open hands.
I'm so glad you're here for this one.
Our scripture comes from Isaiah,
A word that has sustained God's people across centuries of waiting.
Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings like eagles.
They shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40,
Verse 31.
Let us settle over you.
Waiting is one of the most counter-cultural acts a person can practice.
We live in a world built on speed,
Instant results,
Same day delivery,
Algorithms calibrated to eliminate every form of delay.
And when waiting is forced upon us in our careers,
Our relationships,
Our healing,
Our prayers,
We tend to interpret it as absence,
As failure,
As God being slow or distant or somehow unaware of our need.
But Isaiah offers a radically different frame.
Waiting for the Lord is not wasted time.
It is the sacred space where God does his deepest work.
The word for wait in Hebrew,
Gava,
Carries the image of twisting together like strands of a rope being braided.
Waiting in this sense is not passive.
It's the process of being intertwined more deeply with God,
Being strengthened from the inside out.
Much of God's transformation happens underground.
Before the tree pushes through the soil,
Before the breakthrough comes visible,
Before the answer arrives,
There is a forming happening,
A roots going deeper,
A character building being shaped,
A soul being prepared.
Waiting teaches us patience because we learn we are not in control of timing.
It teaches us humility because we discover we are not self-sufficient.
And it teaches us hope,
A living hope,
Because we come to know that what God forms in hiddenness is always worth the wait.
So let's return to these words.
This time,
Receive them as a promise being spoken over your specific waiting.
Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.
Rest here as long as you need.
I want to invite you now into a simple but powerful posture.
Turn your hands over,
Palms facing upward,
Resting in your lap.
This is the posture of open waiting.
Not grasping,
Not clenching,
Not forcing.
Simply open.
Bring to mind what you're waiting for.
You don't have to name it out loud.
You know what it is.
Now breathe slowly and in the rhythm of your breath.
Let these become your interior prayers.
As you inhale,
Receive the waiting as sacred space.
And as you exhale,
Allow God's timing to become your peace.
Breathe with this rhythm as long as you need.
What if the waiting isn't a delay in your story,
But a chapter in it?
What might be forming in you right now,
Underground,
Unseen,
That will one day be the very thing that sustains you?
They shall mount up with wings like eagles.
They shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not faint.
As we close,
Carry this question gently with you.
What are you waiting for that God may be forming within you?
Not what he might give you,
But what he might be forming in you through this season of waiting.
There's a difference,
And it's a beautiful one.
Take one final breath.
Let your hands remain open.
You are not forgotten.
You are not behind.
You are not outside of God's attention.
You are in the holy space of formation,
Being braided together with the one who holds all time in his hands.
The strength you need for what's ahead is being renewed right now,
Even here,
Even in the waiting.
Go with open hands and go in peace.
Now go gently,
Friend.
May goodness and mercy follow you.
