She saw her opportunity and she took it. We were in the grocery store. She was three – and a spicy, spirited sort of three. Her ballet class had just ended, and we’d stopped in to pick up a few things. And, I should mention, I was in a walking cast from a significant sprain to my ankle earlier in the week.
So, when the spicy one wearing the tutu decided to go for a run around the store, she knew there wasn’t a darn thing I could do about it.
At first she ran ahead through the produce section, occasionally looking back and giggling over her shoulder as she darted between the bananas and avocados. Further emboldened by my inability to do no more than call out, “Stay with mommy, please!” she laughed harder and moved on from produce to the dairy section.
Before I knew it, she was rounding the corner at the far end of the store with a devilish gleam in her eyes as she looked back again before she dashed down the bread aisle and out of my sight. Walking as fast as my aching ankle would allow, I prayed aloud – both for patience and that she would not be grabbed by a stranger while she was out of my sightline.
She took two full laps around the large grocery store that afternoon, with me hobbling behind begging her to stop. Finally, an acquaintance from church and a bag boy helped wrangle the runaway ballerina until I could get to her – and promptly strap her into a grocery cart.
Running ahead of where we ought to be isn’t only for three year olds in grocery stores. We adults have a habit of getting ahead of ourselves as well. Plotting and planning our careers. Imagining how relationships might turn out. Daydreaming about getting even at those who seem intent on making our days difficult.
For me, I tend to dash out ahead in times of stress and worry. My mind starts to process all sorts of things that could go wrong. Every possible scenario that could wreck my plans, make life more difficult, or take a bad situation to a completely new level of awful.
When we do that, we are not just letting our minds run away from us. We are running ahead of where God has us and getting out in front of the provision and care he’s laid out for us.
In my running head, I am grasping for wisdom, searching for strength I fear I lack, and I am often trying to outrun whatever I am afraid of. But, if I’m honest, that just leads to more confusion, less strength, and exactly what I’m worried about.
“But they who wait for 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 40:31
So, Isaiah – in one of the most referenced verses he wrote – reminds us how to stay in check with God and in line with how he cares for us. “But they who WAIT on the Lord…” (emphasis mine).
Wait, what? You mean I’m not supposed to charge ahead, choose my own way, and then ask God to bless where I’ve chosen to go?
In the early days of my own divorce process – and admittedly from time to time in the years that have followed – my emotions experienced a sort of “red light, green light” game from childhood. In the “hurry up and wait” reality of navigating the end of a marriage and single parenting kids that keep growing up, it was – and still is sometimes – easy to let my mind run out ahead in worrisome situations.
When life was particularly unclear and our future had yet to be fully defined, it was a constant temptation to run ahead and start to live in panic about what might happen. Or, it was easy to over-analyze every contingency for every major decision I had to make during that time leaving me tangled up in mental knots exhausted and terrified.
And that happened when I didn’t take the time to pause first and remember Who loves me and what He promises me.
The rest of this verse is what we often cling to: “mount up with wings like eagles…” Yes, please. “…run and not grow weary…” Hand raised. “…walk and not grow faint.” If only.
And God does promise those things. But first, we must wait and focus our attention where it belongs – on Him. We are to “wait for the Lord.”
So, God, when we are facing the hard, the exhausting, the maddening, the excruciating, help us to pause. Help us to take a breath and seek Your face, Your word, and Your truth. And help us take that pause, and look to You, before we take action.
