Not Yet

In the doctor's office this morning, after scanning through 2 fashion magazines & wondering just what they were thinking, then reading cover to cover a 3 month old Reader's Digest (in truth it wasn't that long a wait-I read fast) I decided I had read everything within arm's reach, including the doctor's charts and certificates in the wall. I checked my watch again & thankfully the doctor arrived. Five minutes later I was in the parking lot & on my way to work. Is there anything more frustrating than waiting a ridiculously longer amount of time for anything than the awaited event takes?
As I was driving to work I got thinking about how much I really hate waiting, which brought me around again to stillness. In many ways being still and waiting are the same thing-so why do I so cherish my quiet time & enjoy being still when I react so vehemently to waiting? I think it has to do with choice. I choose to be still, to listen for God's voice. I want everything else to fall into my timetable. It's kind of funny that as soon as I laid aside the magazine and decided to use the waiting to meditate, to quiet my mind, the time was gone.
Waiting frustrates me, there are days when I feel like all I do is wait-for the coffee to finish brewing (hurray for pause & serve!), for my daughter to finish getting ready for school, for the light to change, for the phone to ring....for an answer to my prayer.
Ah, there it is. Waiting on God. Likely one of the most difficult things any of us face. We can alter our driving route around traffic, we can hurry people along, we can choose to shop when lines are shorter. We can not hurry God-and it never goes well when we try.
I've heard people say God didn't answer their prayers. In fact what they usually mean is they didn't get the response they wanted. There is always an answer: "Yes", "No", or the hardest to swallow, "Not yet."
As a parent saying "not today" to my children usually elicits whinging or pleas to know when. Are we any different with God? He asks us to wait, reminds us His timing is perfect (and if we look back we know it always has been) and we demand to know when, then. I have been waiting years on a growing list of promises. And some days my patience wavers and I rail at heaven demanding to know how long? And the answer is as unsatisfactory to me as mine is to my children-"soon" or "some day".
Considering my experience this morning, maybe if I set my mind to meditate, to pray, to refocus instead of choosing annoyance or frustration the waiting will end sooner. Maybe that is exactly the point-where's my focus? It's not my time, really, anyway, since I choose to give it all back to God at the beginning of the day.

What have you been waiting for? Do you struggle with waiting too?