{"id":3678,"date":"2024-05-22T08:59:47","date_gmt":"2024-05-22T12:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=3678"},"modified":"2024-05-22T08:59:47","modified_gmt":"2024-05-22T12:59:47","slug":"waiting-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/22\/waiting-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Waiting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

Talk about a crazy job assignment.

In 1835, a pair of pharmacists from the English town of Worcester were asked to recreate a fish sauce that a local dignitary said he had enjoyed on a visit to India.

Lord Marcus Sandys entrusted the list of ingredients to John Lea and William Perrins. Their task didn\u2019t look particularly promising. Somehow they needed to conjure up a tasty concoction composed of vinegar, molasses, anchovies, sugar, onion, salt, and garlic. \u00a0

The result was an unpalatable, foul-smelling brew that the two chemists promptly sealed in a barrel and relegated to a corner of their cellar.\u00a0

Two years later, hoping to free up some storage space, they finally got around to hauling away the offending barrel. But first they decided to taste it \u2013 a decision that seems to have arisen from equal parts courage and madness.\u00a0

It tasted\u2026delicious. The sauce had fermented.

Before the year was over, the pharmacists had begun to produce Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce on an industrial scale. Americans soon discovered that it added zing to beef, fish, chili, eggs and just about everything else.\u00a0

The recipe, which hasn\u2019t changed for 187 years, has achieved a global cult following. When one of Britain\u2019s food channels conducted a survey in 2008 \u2013 \u201cWhat is England\u2019s greatest contribution to world cuisine?\u201d \u2013 Worcestershire Sauce came in first, topping even Yorkshire pudding and cheddar cheese.\u00a0

Lea and Perrins had no idea they had created a culinary sensation. They just had to wait a while.\u00a0

It\u2019s amazing how many things in life require waiting.\u00a0

Demographers have added up the hours that the average American, over the course of a lifetime, will be compelled to wait in lines, sit in traffic, thumb through magazines in physician waiting rooms, wait for public transportation, stay on the phone while holding for customer service, await the return of restaurant servers, and stand by as a loved one finishes getting ready to be seen in public. The total exceeds seven years.

Those who regularly visit Disney theme parks can probably add another year or two to their Wait List.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0

There are other kinds of waiting that are more subtle.

We wait to hear news from our most recent job interview.\u00a0From the radiologist who promised to get back to us before the holiday weekend.\u00a0From the new acquaintance we hope will want to go out on a second date. From the estranged family member who no longer responds to our texts.\u00a0 \u00a0

We wait to hear from God.\u00a0Will he answer our prayers?\u00a0Will he provide guidance for our next step?\u00a0Does God even care what we\u2019re facing right now?\u00a0

We wait for something to happen.\u00a0For someone\u2019s heart to melt.\u00a0For someone\u2019s mind to change.\u00a0For something to give us a sign that everything\u2019s going to be OK.\u00a0

It’s amazing how often we find ourselves waiting.

Then there\u2019s that special kind of waiting that can last a lifetime. We wait and we wonder if our lives have actually made a difference \u2013 if there\u2019s ever going to be a return on the investments we\u2019re making in our work, our relationships, our love, and our service.\u00a0

The apostle Paul urges a group of young Christians not to lose heart: \u201cAnd let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up\u201d (Galatians 6:9).

Then to another group of readers he writes, \u201cTherefore, my dear brothers and sisters,<\/strong>\u00a0stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain\u201d (I Corinthians 15:58).

It can be tempting to conclude that we\u2019re wasting our time or spinning our wheels \u2013 that we\u2019ve spent years planting seeds, doing our best, flailing away at something we believe in, yet with so little evidence of progress or change or success.\u00a0

But God assures us that our \u201clabor in the Lord\u201d is not in vain.\u00a0 There\u2019s no such thing as a dead-end spiritual project.\u00a0 Bible scholar N.T. Wright writes, \u201cWhat you do in the present \u2013 by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself \u2013 will last into God\u2019s future.\u201d

Even though this world is broken, we are not \u201coiling the wheels of a machine that is about to roll over a cliff.\u201d By caring for the earth, we are not \u201crestoring a great painting that is about to be thrown on the fire.\u201d Instead we are accomplishing things that will ultimately become part of God\u2019s new creation. Every moment counts, and counts forever.\u00a0

The time that we invest in teaching a physically or mentally challenged child to walk or to read; the hours that we sit with a family member who is afflicted with Alzheimer\u2019s; every act of kindness and expression of gratitude that honors the name of Jesus is not in vain.\u00a0<\/em>

Maybe it\u2019s hard to see that today. In truth, we won\u2019t know the whole story until we have the chance to look back from the next world.

Which means that today\u2026we wait.

We wait in the confidence that when we see how our stories finally conclude, what we will find will have been eternally worth waiting for.

Even the inventors of Worcestershire Sauce would have to acknowledge that that perspective is A1. \u00a0
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Talk about a crazy job assignment. In 1835, a pair of pharmacists from the English town of Worcester were asked to recreate a fish sauce that a local dignitary said he had enjoyed on a visit to India. Lord Marcus Sandys entrusted the list of ingredients to John Lea and William… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3679,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[178,50],"class_list":["post-3678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-patience","tag-waiting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3680,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3678\/revisions\/3680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}