The Beauty and Agony of Waiting

“Our love is always limited, inadequate, and wounded. Emotionally and spiritually we are like Grand Canyons with a floor beneath our reach. We search and search to find the ‘perfect’ friend or lover or mate who can meet all our needs. But only when we give up on our messianic expectations can we be set truly free to love, in a reflection of God’s highest and widest, longest and deepest love for us.

The psalmist learned this secret as, surrendering his demands, he could begin to say, ‘I wait for the LORD. My soul waits and in his word I hope’.

Carlo Carletto, who had spent many years in the desert alone with God, was asked what he had heard from God. His simple reply: ‘God is telling us: learn to wait – wait – wait for your God, wait for love'”

Leighton Ford

From The Attentive Life (2008, InterVarsity Press)