There are many passages of spiritual development and growth that require a period of waiting.  During this time, it may appear that little is happening, and yet a great deal may be happening.  The ‘forty years’ in the desert of Sinai, the ‘forty years’ of the Flood, are examples of periods of time that were involved with great transitions, ‘forty’ being the word for a ‘period of sacred time of great duration’ from the human standpoint.

So, too is it today with waiting.  Often, there are passages that must take place in time that require endurance, patience, and perseverance, even while it appears that no visible movement is taking place.  Such is often the way of Divine unfoldment which does not take place on the level of the visible or predictable, and which does not grant power to the ego ‘to know.’  This is very difficult for the human embodied self that must wait without visible signs of support, but it simultaneously casts the personality and the entire mental-emotional being into the realm of the soul, allowing the wishes and desires of the soul to become paramount over the needs of the ego.

Waiting is a passage, a passage of hope, of trust, and of endurance, that must often be gone through so that change can take place.

There are those that wait in distrust and with great fear.

There are those that wait in doubt or confusion about what is happening.

There are those that wait with optimism and trust.

And there are those that wait in unknowing – leaving all in God’s hands.

The latter is the waiting that gives greatest power to the soul to dismantle the needs and desires of the ego, and to take its place as the greater source of authority within the human life.  It is the soul that benefits from waiting, even while the embodied self may be in pain.  And it is the soul that institutes and creates from the vantage point of its own purposes, so that the greatest spiritual attainment and movement can take place.

Many suffer during times of waiting, because the bedrock of trust in Divine unfoldment has been sorely depleted, and because fear has taken its place.  Many suffer, and many desire ‘to know’ when, how, and where things will materialize.  This is entirely natural from the human standpoint but it is not the way of Divine unfoldment which does not separate itself from the Source of all movement, namely, the Source that is God.

Divine unfoldment does not require knowledge, it requires trust.  It does not require planning, it requires surrender.  And in the midst of this surrender, great truths are being born within the heart, truths concerning the soul’s relationship with God and truths concerning the meaning of life itself.  Waiting brings these truths to the deeper levels of the heart, even while the emotions and mental process may be experiencing deep distress.

Overall, the intrinsic benefits accorded by waiting may only be known after the period of waiting has passed, or sometimes not even within a given lifetime.  Yet, most often, the transitions of the heart are known by the embodied self within the lifetime in which they are endured, and the great benefits that come to those whose souls become further empowered in this way are often known to the conscious self.

Waiting is not something that the ego would choose.  It is something that the soul must choose and must be empowered enough to do so.  This enables the embodied self to endure a period of difficulty or distress, even when the duration is unknown.  When the soul is empowered in this way, then all difficulty begins to be absorbed into a sense of greater purpose, and all trials are seen as part of the sacred and divine Plan for each soul that brings each one, in their own unique way, into Divine wholeness.

Article Section -  Individual