I’ve spent a lot of time waiting at airports these past few weeks. Waiting to be checked in, waiting in line at security, and waiting for bags at baggage claim. 🧳✈️ If you’re not patient, you’ll struggle at the airport.
Part of my Bible reading this morning came from Isaiah 30, a chapter I had never connected with patience before. Verse 1 opens with a rebuke:
“Ah, stubborn children,” declares the Lord, “who carry out a plan, but not Mine…”
God’s people had decided to take matters into their own hands because they thought they knew better. The chapter unfolds as a warning about what happens when we insist on going our own way.
Then comes God’s invitation:
“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength.” But they were unwilling.
A few verses later, God responded:
“Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore He exalts Himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for Him.”
Security checkpoints and patience
We tend to think of waiting, being patient, as something God asks of us. Yet Isaiah reminds us that God waits too. He waits to be gracious. He waits to show mercy. He waits while we chase our own plans and discover, once again, that our way is not better than His.
What patience. What love.
There is a lesson to be learned between security checkpoints and baggage claim: waiting is not always a sign that nothing is happening. It may be that the waiting itself is evidence God’s mercy being greater than our stubbornness.
And when we finally surrender to following His direction, we discover He has been there all along, not to condemn us but to show us grace.
