Rachel Whisman

At the end of the school year, parents will hand me Dr. Seuss’s “Oh the Places You’ll Go!” to sign and ask me to leave behind a note for their child. The student won’t receive this until they graduate from high school. I find it to be a nice memorabilia and keepsake for them as they enter a new season of life, going from adolescence to adulthood. As I flip through the pages, I have started to leave my note halfway through at an unpopular place in the book. I stop, and the page reads, 

You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking paасе
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, towards a most useless place.
The Waiting Place…

…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Dr.Seuss cleverly tries to articulate the reality of our lives. My students are seven and eight years old, and the world lies innocently before a few, while for others, they have been scarred by the repercussions of sin. The mood of the waiting place that Dr. Seuss portrays is passive, meaningless, unfruitful, and even “useless”. Is that true, though? Is our waiting useless? 

The answer to that depends on whom or to what you wait on. Scripture gives us the answer. We are created to wait on the Lord. This is seen in Lam. 3:25, “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him,” and Psalm 27:14, “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord.” It is a command that is not passive, useless, or meaningless, but purposeful. Our strength is found in our submission to his power, which He works in us through His Spirit as we wait on Him. What the world deems useless, the Lord redeems. 

Waiting is hard because it forces a dependence on something outside of ourselves. However, “He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you” (2 Cor. 13:3). The only question is, what or who do you base your confidence on when your expectations and timing are not met? Lean into the promise of Lam. 3:25, “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.” His pacing is perfect, even if it means slowing down.

“And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”

1 John 3:3