Waiting for an Answer

Filling out an application can be a very exciting undertaking. Whether you are applying for a new job, hoping to enroll in a new school, or considering joining a new organization; as you answer each successive question, your imagination begins to anticipate what it will be like to be invited to participate in this new opportunity.

Perhaps you have also experienced the anxiety that grows as you move through the easy questions (like your name and address) to the ones that are difficult to answer (like “What are your strengths and weaknesses?”). Now you’re wondering how many other people are also applying for this opportunity. You might find yourself wishing you had been a little more friendly with your last boss or more focused in a couple of classes. Would it make your application stronger if you could list a couple of places where you had volunteered?

The time between submitting your application and receiving a decision becomes a place where both the excitement and the anxiety grow. You move back and forth between being confident that you are the person they’ve been looking for, to wondering why you ever thought you had a chance of being considered. You begin to think about who you might need to know, or where you might need to go, or what you might need to acquire, or how you might need to think to improve your chances of be accepted.

Whether you have an application you are waiting to hear back from or not, you may wonder if there is a place where you are accepted. Paul assures the believers in Rome that if they will only give themselves to God without reservation, God will accept their offering—because the grace of God is the proof that God accepts them.

May you accept the fact that you are accepted by a gracious God who wants you to experience a life that is good and pleasing and perfect; and may the knowledge of that acceptance give you peace with yourself, your neighbor, and your God.