What Are You Waiting For?

“If you like the results you’re getting, keep doing what you’re doing.” – my father, Richard Parrish

In my professional life, I sometimes offer my father’s advice as a way to interrupt the tyranny of “the way we do things.” It usually provides a gut-check and an opportunity to objectively evaluate outcomes as opposed to intentions. At this point, my work as a kind of organizational therapist and Sherpa can begin in earnest.

But patience is definitely not my virtue. In my personal and professional life, five minutes after I’ve had an idea, I must resist the urge to become puzzled at why it hasn’t already been put into action. I find myself tempted to wash my hands of the issue and re-engage when people are “ready to get down to business.”

Over time, I’ve had to learn to slow down. Readjust my pace and timing. Wait. I’ve come to discover that sometimes, the unlearning of old habits, expectations and systems takes longer than acquiring the new. My attitude and approach during this season of unlearning and waiting often has more to do with ultimately achieving the goal than I realize in the moment.

My own unlearning has involved redefining the definition of waiting. Waiting is not a passive, wring-my-hands and shake my head while I let my life or work go to hell in a hand basket kind of attitude.

Instead, my definition of waiting is active. I observe, taking a “fearless inventory” of the situation as it exists, not as I wish it to be. With my feet firmly planted in reality, I then turn my eyes toward the outcome I wish to achieve. Waiting then becomes an act of observing, knowing when it’s time to take the next step. Consider the implications of a new observation. Learn a new skill.

For me, waiting is a lot like pulling out of my garage and driving across town. If I wait for all of the lights to turn green at the same time, I will never leave my driveway. They key is to have the courage to begin the journey and approach the first light, trusting that as I reach the next one, it will also turn green. And the next one. And the one after that.

The trick is to learn to adjust my acceleration and braking. If I go too fast, I can cause damage ­– to myself and others. If I go too slowly, I create frustration. Not paying attention is disastrous. So is being so acutely focused on every tiny detail that I miss the beauty of the ride.

As with any journey of any length, there are the inevitable bumps and scrapes – sometimes serious ones. But pulling off to the side of the road and giving up means I miss more than the destination. It means I miss all of the sights, experiences and people I would otherwise greet along the way. In this context, there really isn’t any other choice but to keep going; bruised and battered, but moving forward, nonetheless.

I’m thinking a lot about my definition of waiting in the context of this Advent season. O come, O come, Emmanuel is not a mournful lament, uttered from a ditch on the side of the road. Neither is it a phrase we toss out as we “raise a glass” and drink wistfully to the coulda, shoulda, woulda moments of life.

Rather, it’s the quiet, resolute determination to pull out of the driveway and merge into life, believing that God will use all people, places and things to ransom captive Israel. This includes the hard things and the hard-headed people. The failures. The successes. All of the moments in between.

Like Mary, this kind of waiting requires trust and vulnerability, knowing not everyone will understand. Some people will judge. Call names. Walk away. And others, usually the unexpected and often unwelcome others, will come near, willing to believe the unbelievable.

Yes, I’m waiting. But my engine is not idle. My GPS is firmly fixed on an outcome and I’ve left the driveway, believing and trusting that – with the grace and guidance of God, – I will reach my destination. And perhaps even help a few other people along the way.

So, Dad. To answer your question, I like the results I’m getting. And I will keep doing what I’m doing; namely… waiting.

O come, O Wisdom from on high, who ordered all things mightily; to us the path of knowledge show and teach us in its ways to go.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.