Let me take you back to your driver’s education days with a short quiz:
- When you are at a traffic light and it is green, what does that mean? Go.
- When you are at a traffic light and it is red, what does that mean? Stop.
- Now for your final question: When you are at a traffic light and it is yellow, what does that mean?
If you are like me, you probably answered that last question with “speed up.” Let’s be honest: Who wants to wait? We wait enough, as it is – in traffic, in the grocery store, in the Starbucks line … we even wait on our waiters at restaurants, who are, ironically, waiting on us. Convinced that we wait a lot in life?
There are seasons in our lives where we feel that our timing is completely different from everyone else’s. We are constantly waiting on people because of something they did or failed to do. It can definitely get frustrating.
In the book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul, who wrote the majority of the New Testament, addresses the very issue of waiting on others. In Ephesians 4:2 (NLT 2nd Ed.), he writes, “Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.”
A few years ago, I went to a conference. There were about 12,000 people in the arena, and there was a whole array of speakers and bands.
One of the bands that played that day was my wife’s favorite band, Switchfoot. They were amazing! I love their music and passion for what they do. They put on a great show, and the crowd loved them.
At the end of the day, the conference let out. All 12,000 of us went to our cars. As you can imagine, there was horrible traffic in the parking lot. Nothing was moving, and all we were doing was … waiting.
Can I be honest with you? I was frustrated and irritated, to say the least. I was tired, ready to get home and in no mood to wait in traffic.
I was having a really good pity party for myself when all of a sudden, I looked up, and walking directly in front of our car was Jon Foreman, the lead singer for Switchfoot. He had no entourage or security with him. In fact, he was carrying his own guitar and amplifier to his car (which, by the way, was parked farther from the building than ours).
He didn’t have a limousine, a private helicopter or even a cart to carry his music gear. It was one of the biggest acts of humility I have seen from someone famous.
I think that’s what Paul is talking about. Maybe someone made a mistake and didn’t get Foreman a close parking space, or maybe someone just didn’t think to offer to help him. Either way, the lead singer was left to walk to his car and carry his own gear – and to be candid, he didn’t even seem upset about it.
Every single day, we all have to wait on people because of something they either did or failed to do. No one is perfect.
My hope for you is this: Next time you are waiting in line at Starbucks and you find yourself frustrated because the barista isn’t moving as fast as you would like, take a deep breath, remember Ephesians 4:2 and realize your triple mocha, grande, no-whip, non-fat latte will arrive shortly … You will just have to wait.
Chris Emmitt is the executive pastor and a teaching pastor at Community Bible Church. He preaches Thursday nights at 7 p.m. or Sundays at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. You can contact him via email at chris@communitybible.com, Facebook or Twitter (@chrisemmitt). You can also visit www.communitybible.com to see service times, video sermons and podcasts.
