Very Waiting

I'm at a waiting place.  A very waiting place.  There are different kinds of waiting.  Sometimes waiting is just a matter of putting in time.  Other times, you hardly know you are waiting.  And sometimes there is the very waiting.  That's where I am now.  I'm waiting for the phone to ring.  It's the kind of waiting where you don't go anywhere without your phone and you don't dare turn it off. It's the kind of waiting where you explain to your professors that your phone is going to remain on vibrate during class and that if it rings, you will take the call, irregardless of what is going on in class.  It's the kind of waiting where you come back in when you are half way out the door with your hands full of garbage to grab your your phone because you don't want to miss the call because you are taking the garbage out.  It's the kind of waiting where a text message jolts you out of an unintended nap and leaves your heart pounding as you search the couch cushions for your phone.  It's the kind of waiting where you check your phone repeatedly because you think maybe you felt it vibrate.
It's the kind of waiting where you are both eagerly expecting the phone call and dreading it all at the same time.  It's the kind of waiting you do when you know this phone call could either change everything, or change nothing at all.
All this waiting has prompted some thinking.  As the body of Christ, we do a lot of waiting.  We even have whole church seasons designed for waiting.  We call them Advent and Lent.   In Advent we wait for the coming of Christ.  In Lent (which is almost over by the way), we wait for the Celebration of Easter.  And then of course there is the time after Easter when we wait to celebrate the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost.  Our church year revolves around waiting.  And then there is the Big Waiting.  The waiting for Christ to return and the kingdom of heaven to be realized. But how often do we really realize that we are waiting?  How often do we engage in the state of Very Waiting?  Do we wait for Christ with the same expectation that we wait for a potentially life changing phone call? How would that look?  How would our lives be different?  What if we knew that Jesus was going to call us up on our cell phones? How would we go about making plans?  How would we live?
Waiting for Jesus is a different kind of waiting than waiting for this phone call.  I knew that today was the earliest I would possibly hear anything.  I know that now that it is after 5pm I am  not likely to hear anything until tomorrow morning.  But it doesn't work that way with Jesus.  He isn't bound by the business day, nor is He bound by whether or not you have cell phone reception. And when He does come, it will change everything. Are you ready to join me in the Very Waiting?