risky business

I take a risk in posting this, I realize.
"Oh! But it's such a nice little poem!" you all might say.
The truth of the matter is this: I usually don't subscribe to cute little poems of encouragement. I don't subscribe to Precious Moments dolls or to Proverbs stitched onto throw pillows. I don't subscribe to note cards bearing NIV interpretations of John 3:16 or to signing letters with "God bless you"... the reason is that to me it represents a culture of people who say a lot of things and do very little. To me it represents the idea of loving Christ and others, but not actually doing it.

Regardless, I remember a dear friend at the training center giving me a copy of this poem that I have actually kept quite treasured for the past 10 years, the typing paper that bears its printing has been kept folded and creased and tucked away because it was so pertinent and important to me then.
It is has become impossible to ignore the perfect timing at which this piece of paper constantly chooses to resurface in my life. At the risk of sounding really sappy, I feel like it becomes more and more important to me each and every time.

***

Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried.
Quietly, patiently, lovingly God replied.
I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate,
And the Master so gently said, "You must wait!"

"'Wait?', you say, wait!" my indignant reply.
"Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!
Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard?
By FAITH I have asked, and am claiming your Word.

"My future and all to which I relate
Hangs in the balance, and you tell me to WAIT?
I'm needing a 'yes,' a go-ahead sign,
Or even a 'no' to which I can resign.

"You promised, dear Lord, that if we believe
We need but to ask, and we shall receive.
And Lord, I've been asking, and this is my cry
I'm weary of asking! I need a reply!"

Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate
As my Master replied once again, "You must wait."
So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut,
And grumbled to God, "So, I'm waiting. . .for what?"

He seemed then to kneel and His eyes wept with mine,
And He tenderly said, "I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens and darken the sun.
I could raise the dead and cause mountains to run.

"I could give all you seek and pleased you would be.
You'd have what you want, but you wouldn't know ME.
You'd not know the depth of my love for each saint.
You'd not know the power that I give to the faint.

"You'd not learn to see through the clouds of despair;
You'd not learn to trust just by knowing I'm there;
You'd not know the joy of resting in me
When darkness and silence are all you can see.

"You'd never experience the fullness of love
When the peace of my Spirit descends like a dove;
You would know that I give and I save for a start,
But you'd not know the depth of the beat of my heart.

"The glow of my comfort late into the night.
The faith that I give when you walk without sight.
The depth that's beyond getting just what you ask
From an infinite God, who makes what you have LAST.

"You'd never know, should your pain quickly flee,
What it means that 'My grace is sufficient for thee.'
Yes, your dreams for your loved one overnight would come true,
But, oh, the loss! if you lost what I'm doing in you.

"So, be silent, my child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to truly know Me,
And though oft may my answers seem terribly late,
My most precious answer of all is still..."WAIT."