Waiting for Spirit to Move

Anticipation

“Well,” said Pooh, “what I like best,” and then he had to stop and think. Because, although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called.”

A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

Sunday's sermon by our pastor, Paul, was about the difference between waiting and anticipation. The text was Psalm 130, in which David, the psalmist, waits for Yahweh to make a move—as was so often the case for the early Hebrews. “My soul waits for Yahweh, more than those who wait for the morning,” he says. In this case, David is waiting for God to redeem Israel from all its iniquities. He praises God's steadfastness and mercy but it seems to be done with some trepidation—anticipation is not always about goodness coming your way. Heaping lavish praise on Yahweh did not always result in redemption—at least not before a bunch of suffering went down.

Atonement and redemption go hand-in-hand, but that's not what today's blog is about. Today, I want to write about anticipation. It's interesting that we consider anticipating to be a positive emotion—like anticipating Christmas, or a visit from someone we love. Waiting, on the other hand, somehow indicates a negative—waiting for the test results, for the diagnosis. Waiting for the bills to come, or the estimate for repairing your busted-up car. Not so much fun.

Here's the difference, I think. Anticipation feels like excitement, and waiting, like anxiety. Both are part of life. We have to wait—for things to change, to see the end result, to find out what it means. And, that produces anxiety—which is free-floating in the world right now. We can also anticipate that even in the worst storm, daylight eventually comes, along with resolution. We wait for the spirit to move and we anticipate that it will move in the right direction and decisively. Alexander Shulgin wrote, “Some part of me can't wait to see what life's going to come up with next! Anticipation without the usual anxiety. And underneath it all is the feeling that we [all] belong here, just as we are, right now.” I feel that way,too.

We may not know what comes next, and we must wait to find out, but we can spend this time generating positive energy in anticipation that what comes next will be something worth waiting for.

                                                            In the Spirit,

                                                               Jane