You want me to wait?

"Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!" Psalms 27:14

Maybe you've never had to wait on God. Maybe you're not writing a column for the religion page of a newspaper, and God's not sending your fingers flying across the keyboard with words to inspire, convict, uplift, enlighten or encourage. But here I sit at the keyboard waiting É and waiting É and waiting.

First I pray, next I expect and then I start praising God for providing although I haven't yet seen any type appear on my computer screen. I stew and sweat a while, so I pray and believe some more. Next I plead, "God, I've got a deadline!" while I remind him that it's his column and he's not going to get much glory out of a blank hole on a newspaper page. Finally, I whine all the reasons why he should help me -- NOW!

But you've never done that. You've always waited patiently on the Lord until you got his answer.

So you're not like Hulda, who's just mourned her weddingless 35th birthday after years of praying and waiting for a husband. She's so lonely and wanting to love and be loved that she could fall in love or lust with just about any guy.

That's when Attila the Hun calls. Rather than spend yet another Friday night alone, Hulda accepts a date with him. After waiting so long, she figures the Hun must be a real honey God's sending her way. Besides, it's only one night, right? So she goes out, survives, and one date becomes many. She gets used to Attila's no-account, low-life ways, learns how to pillage a village with him, gets hitched, and becomes Mrs. Hun.

Of course, Attila's prenuptial promise of a villa in Manila becomes a shack in Hackensack. All Hulda's got to show after 10 years of marital blitz is 10 little Hun-dingers just like their dad and three of his out-of-wedlock babies she's taken to raise. At 45, feeling like a 100, Hulda's had enough of her Hun hubby. Having her fill of Attila, she gets a divorce.

Naturally, there's no child support because all Attila owns is a helmet full of lice and his new Hun Hummer with its new monthly payment book. Fortunately, Hulda has some job experience because she's cooked for her husband's hordes throughout the marriage, even during her 10 pregnancies. So now she'll continue to work, make rent payments on the shack, put food on the table to feed her 16 hungry Huns, make car payments on her 1967 OLDS-mobile, and juggle the payments on her electric bills with the hospital payments piled up when Attila broke a couple of her ribs after one of his nights out drinking with his Hun hombres.

Finally a mournful Hulda asks God, "Why did you send Attila into my life?"

And God replies, "Honey, I never sent the Hun. Besides, I even tried to warn you in your premarital counseling session when the preacher pointed out that you'd be unequally yoked if you married a heathen Hun."

I have a hunch you've gotten my message. Whether it's for a newspaper column, spouse, house, money or more money, different job, better boss, healing, spouse or children to change, or even you to change -- sometimes it takes waiting É and waiting É and waiting.

The Bible promises, though, "The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him" (Lamentations 3:25), "Those who wait upon the Lord shall inherit the earth" (Psalms 37:9), and "They shall not be ashamed who wait on Me" (Isiah 49:23). Like David in Psalms 25:21, we can say, "Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, For I wait for You."

So don't make a hun-mongous mistake; wait on God.

June Seabaugh is a member of Christ Church of the Heartland in Cape Girardeau.