I don’t do church that much. I struggle with the plastic perfection I find in most of them and I am too tired and too cynical to try and do something about it, in me and in others. so, I am always glad to listen when friends who I trust share with me what they think is a great message that they’ve heard. When I hear it through the filters of my friend’s hearts, the message (which is usually reduced from 45 minutes to about 5 minutes) hits home so brilliantly. maybe because all the unnecessary peripherals and hype are eliminated, and the core of the message is delivered so that it can be discussed, and it can have the power to cut through to the heart. a few weeks ago, a mate shared with me a message he’d heard at the previous week’s service. a message on waiting. the crux of it … while you are waiting, thinking that nothing is happening, God is working … in you, for you and through you. there is never a time when God is doing nothing. he is working, even as we wait. sometimes we see in retrospect the result of his working. sometimes only others see the result. sometimes we are impacted. sometimes only others are impacted. but there is never a time when God is doing nothing. I must be honest with you, sometimes … no … a lot of the times I feel like God is doing nothing. but when I stop and think, I feel like this because I cannot see the whole picture. I can only see through my eyes and my experience and my limited understanding. God not only sees me and my circumstance but the entire universe … past, present and future. He is still writing the story of what will be history. I don’t like waiting. I want it all now. but God knows that I can’t handle it all now and so he lets me wait while he attends to all for, in and through me … I wonder if he does not also make you wait sometimes while he tends to affairs for, in and through you … too …