​

“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.

Mal. 3:1 

Whether it is waiting in line at the amusement park or for our company to announce who will be included in this round of layoffs, waiting is never an easy thing to do . I suppose that is because waiting is mostly passive in nature. There’s not much to do when we wait, except take a long look at the ceiling, inhale deeply, and sigh. After a while our imagination begins to pose hypotheticals to us. Mostly it’s the brain’s way of saying, “I’m bored,” and if we could treat our mind like the 7-year-old ADHD child that it is, we would be ok. But when we begin to believe the stories about the monsters being true, we forget that God is a preparing God as well as a God of the suddenly.
I cannot presume what phase you may be in right now, and I know God seems to take His time with a lot of His plans and promises; but without the suddenly occurring, God’s preparations are muted. Imagine how poorly we would understand Him as Creator without the suddenly of “Let there be light.” How He could not have been fully realized as Savior with the suddenly of His resurrection. Or how He would not be clearly seen as King of Kings without the suddenly of His return.

Behind every moment of suddenly is a season of preparation. Those may be long, dry days for you but they are not without promise. They are not without hope. And they do not have to be without action. 

Just as a farmer tills the soil, plants the seed, and irrigates the land, so we too can actively join God in His work as we wait for the harvest of His preparations to arrive. Your role may seem insignificant now, but you cannot anticipate a bounty if you will not go out into the fields. 

So pray to God. Actively seek His moment of suddenly. It is out there. It is waiting for you. Like the dawn, it will not be there. 

And then it will. Radiant and awe-inspiring and beautiful. 

The Lord that you desire will come, breaking out against the night. There will be no more preparations, for He will suddenly be here.