Jon Acuff

Over at his “Stuff Christians Like” blog, Jon Acuff ruminates on waiting on God. Here are his thoughts:

I don’t know what questions you ask your wife or your husband or your boyfriend or your girlfriend. I don’t know what questions you ask professors or friends or bosses or anyone else. But I do know one question you ask God. It’s one of the most popular questions we Christians ask. Here it is:

“Do you want me to wait on you right now God?”

Waiting on God is one of the hardest things to figure out. I’ve written about it a bunch before because it’s a question we all ask at some point.

Does God want me to look for a new job, or be still and wait where he has me?

Does God want me to date more if I’m interested in being married, or does he want me to wait on him?

Does God want us to buy a new house or wait on him?

Does God want me to quit my job and join the mission field or wait on him?

The variety of wait-or-go situations is endless. And confusing.

But I have discovered one tiny verse that’s challenged how I view the waiting dilemma.

The verse is Mark 15:43, and it’s really simple. It’s such a fragment of a fragment of a much bigger story that it’s easy to overlook it. But it does speak to waiting in an interesting way.

Here is what it says:

Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body.

On the one hand, Joseph is noted as someone who was “waiting for the kingdom of God.” He is identified as a man of faith, as someone waiting. But then, within the confines of the same exact sentence, he is described as someone that “went boldly.”

He didn’t do one or the other; he did both. Waiting and action were not mutually exclusive in his life. But most of the time, I act like they are. I usually think it’s a one or the other type of world we’re living in. I either wait on God, or I run with God. But Joseph did both.

He waited and he sprinted.

He was calm and bold.

Peaceful and busy. (Insert your own two words that feel weird together.)

Maybe the answer to the question we all keep asking isn’t what we thought it would be.

Maybe the answer to the question, “Should I wait on God or hustle as hard as I can?” is actually “Yes.”

I, for one, feel convicted.