Nm 21:4-9 / Jn 8:21-30

One of the hardest things in life is waiting, but it’s something we have to do all the time.  It starts when we’re very small, waiting for Christmas, for our birthday, for the end of the long car ride, or for mom to get off the phone.  And it continues all our lives, in the doctor’s office, on the freeway, in a pregnancy, in a fledgling business. It never stops and there’s no avoiding it.

As we see in today’s Old Testament reading, the Israelites also had to wait — out there in the desert — and they didn’t do it very well. Instead, they got angry at God, and cursed God for leading them into that boring place and making them eat boring food! What ingrates! They forgot that it was God Himself who had set them free from miserable slavery, and had saved their lives. They forgot how to be thankful, and the sourness of their hearts brought death to many of them.

Waits are inevitable, but don’t let them sour you and make you feel like a victim. Take command of them, use them as centering time, remembering time. Remember how blessed you are, how lucky you are to be alive, how fortunate you are to be loved by a good Lord who never abandons or turns away.

A heart that remembers blessings never turns sour.