Anticipation-- Is Keepin' Me Waitin'

Blue Sunrise

"We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway, yay
And I wonder if I'm really with you now
Or just chasin' after some finer day

Anticipation, anticipation
Is makin' me late
Is keepin' me waitin'" --Carly Simon 


    As I walked to the paddock yesterday morning, the mares were in rare form. Even more excited than usual to see me coming, they raced around the edges of the paddock in anticipation of my arrival. I stopped just to watch their antics. Jazz, my older mare, tired out first and got frustrated by my delay. She went to her feed bucket and started pawing at it until she had managed to knock it off the fence. In inpatient anticipation, she actually delayed my efforts to get her feed to her.
 
I reached into the paddock and picked up the bucket and put it back on the rail. Then headed back to the barn to get their grain and prepare their hay nets. Just minutes away from getting what she wanted, Jazz again began pawing at the feed bucket. In the short time it took me to get back out there with her grain, she had knocked the bucket off again. Lady, my four year old mare, stood quietly at her feed bucket knowing she always got fed first, I suppose. However, when I stopped short of pouring the grain into her bucket she began running back and forth from Jazz's bucket to hers in anticipation of receiving her morning portion.
     It has always been difficult to wait for a pleasurable expectation. In this day of instant everything, patience is not an easy character trait to acquire. Letters by mail, which can now arrive to most destinations overnight, are replaced by email which arrives in a few seconds and is available to be read as soon the recipient logs into their computer. Even email is slow these days because sending a text to someone's phone which is attached to their hip is instantaneous. In the day of landline telephones, no one expected an answer every time you called someone. If the line was busy or rang ten times without an answer, you waited and dialed them back at a later time. Now that most people have cell phones we get frustrated when we can't reach someone immediately.
     When we order something on Amazon or ebay, we expectantly wait for it to be delivered within a day or two. Any longer than that and we are calling and demanding delivery of the gift we have purchased for ourselves. All we can think about is the gift in anticipation of it's arrival. Soon after it arrives, it soon fades into the swamp of material goods that engulf our lives.
      The gifts that do not fade come from God. God is the giver of good and perfect gifts. The waiting is the hardest part. "The eyes of all wait for You [looking, watching, and expecting] and You give them their food in due season. You open Your hand and satisfy every living thing with favor. Psalm 145:15-16
      Are you anticipating a good and perfect gift from your Father in heaven? "Your Father Who is in heaven [perfect as He is] gives good and advantageous things to those who keep on asking Him!" Matthew 7:11   What is it that you are asking for? Is God making you wait? Or have you just not recognized the gifts God is giving you each day.
      Every sunrise is a joyful pleasure, every day a good and perfect gift from the Lord.