It has been reported that the average American in a lifetime will spend five years waiting in line, two years returning telephone calls, eight months opening junk mail, and six months staring at traffic lights. In spite of all our modern technology, the first words we often see on the computer screen is “please wait". Anyone who makes a telephone call these days is likely to be put on hold long before they hear a human being on the other end of the phone.

Some of you got to church today in a “holding" state of mind. You are waiting for a test result, a word about a job interview, for your kids to come, or maybe to go. To wait or not to wait, that is not the question. The question is how will we wait? What purpose and meaning will we find in these in-between times?

There is a minor charac…