What are you like at waiting?
For birthdays? For holidays? At a bus-stop? In a traffic jam? For love?
For the Messiah?
Simeon and Anna had been waiting their whole lives. Waiting. Eagerly. Expectantly. Trustingly. Unswervingly. Faithfully. Patiently. For God to fulfil his promise.
I love that about Simeon and Anna. They were good waiters. Read about them in Luke 2:21-40.
But allow your imagination to unpack the story a little.
This was just another day. Another day just like the last however many thousands of days they had spent waiting.
Simeon and Anna were doing what they normally did. They had woken up thinking this would be like every other day.
But it wasn’t.
This was a day of fulfilment. A day of completion. A day of promises kept.
This was another day of divine interruptions. Another day of God’s fingerprints. Of God conducting.
Can you sense the peaceful, praise-tinged joy in Simeon’s words?
“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel” (Luke 2:29-32).
What about us – how are we to wait?
Peter tells us in 1 Peter 4:7. “Therefore be clear-minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”
And in 2 Peter 5:11. “You ought to live holy and godly lives.”
Lord God: help me wait well. Amen.