I've been preaching recently about the spiritual life. What is it? How do you know when you're spiritual? Oftentimes the spiritual life is different than what we think it is. Check out these words from Watchman Nee.

"Christians deem their spiritual lives to be at high tide when they feel the presence of God, and at low tide when they feel low or dry. Yet these are only feelings and as such do not represent the reality of spiritual life. Those who have moved on to maturity clearly understand this and thus do not place much trust in these transient feelings."

The Waiting Game

I should have known it was going to be a late night when my 4-month-old daughter fell asleep during her last bottle of the day at 9:30 pm. That never happens. She gulps until the bottle is on the verge of implosion from the sheer pressure of suction. Enfamil formula must be Maxwell House coffee for infants--good to the last drop.

So, our wonderful daughter arose at 3:00 am--a little fussy, but with a smile. She doesn't wake up to eat anymore in the middle of the night, so I tried everything to get her back to sleep, but finally gave up and gave her her bottle about 20 minutes ago. Usually after an hour and a half I'm a little but frustrated with this stage of early childhood development, but tonight's a little different. My sleep wasn't interrupted by the cries from down the hall. I wasn't asleep anyway.

It started at 2 am when I woke up and realized that I had left a window open. Thoughts of JonBenet Ramsey rushing through my mind, I quickly went and closed it. Most of the time I would quickly go back to sleep, but not tonight (really this morning). My mind is busy tonight.

You see, right now, in our lives we are waiting. Waiting for a decision. Waiting to make decisions based on that decision. Financial decisions, career decisions, big decisions. What we're waiting for is not a decision we can make, only one we have to live with, but that's not the problem. The problem is waiting. I don't know if there's anything in the world worse than waiting.

Rochelle is waiting to see her father again. I'm waiting to see if the South Beach Diet, a personal trainer and 24-Hour Fitness will make a difference. We have friends who are waiting on children. We have friends who are waiting on love. Right now I'm waiting to see if my daughter is really going to sleep the rest of the night or will I again have to arise from my state of non-sleep where I will be staring at the ceiling...waiting.

But ultimately, being a Christian means a lot of waiting. Our bodies will one day be healed, but we have to wait. Our relationships will one day be restored, we're waiting on that one too. Soon our hearts will be at peace, but not soon enough--we'll spend some time waiting on that. The hearts of the children will turn to the hearts of the parents, we will race to the arms of Jesus and we'll know as we are known--but only after we wait.

I'm not sure if I have any deep spiritual meaning to hang on all this waiting, but I know that I am waiting to be with Jesus. And His sacrifice means that He's waiting to be with me too.

Maranatha--"Come Oh, Lord."