Wait

Edited to include author information. Originally passed around as "author unknown," the poem now is attributed to a man from my own city! It was passed to me as Child, You Must Wait, but is originally entitled, Wait.

Russell Lee Kelfer, 1933-2000, San Antonio, Texas

Desperately, longingly, humbly I cried.
Quietly and lovingly my God replied.
I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate,
And the Master so gently said, “Child, you must wait.”

“Wait?” You say, “wait?” my indignant reply.
“Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!
Is Your hand shortened? Or have You not heard?
By FAITH I have asked, and am claiming Your Word.”

“My future and all to which I can relate
Hangs in the balance, and You tell me to WAIT?
I’m needing a ‘yes,’ a go-ahead sign,
Or even a ‘no’ to which I can resign.”

“And Lord, You promised that if we believe
We need but to ask, and we shall receive.
And Lord, I’ve been asking, and this is my cry:
I’m weary of asking, I need a reply!”

Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate
As my Master replied once again, “You must wait.”
So...I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut,
And grumbled to God, “So...I’m waiting...for what?”

He seemed then to kneel and His eyes wept with mine,
And He tenderly said, “I could give you a sign
I could shake the heavens, and darken the sun
could raise the dead, and cause mountains to run.

All you seek, I could give, and pleased you would be.
You would have what you want -- but you wouldn’t know ME.”
“You’d not know the depth of My love for each saint;
You’d not know the power that I give to the faint;

You’d not learn to see through the clouds of despair;
You’d not learn to trust just by knowing I’m there;
You’d not know the joy of resting in Me
When darkness and silence were all you could see.”

“You’d never experience that fullness of love
As the peace of My Spirit descends like a dove;
You’d know that I give and I save...for a start,
But you’d not know the depth of the beat of My heart.”

“The glow of My comfort late into the night.
The faith that I give when you walk without sight,
The depth that’s beyond getting just what you asked
Of an infinite God, who makes what you have last.”

“You’d never know should your pain quickly flee,
What it means that ‘My grace is sufficient for thee.’
Yes, your dearms for your loved ones overnight would come true,
But, oh, the loss, if you lost what I’m doing in you!”

“So, be silent, my child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to get to know Me.
And though oft may My answers seem terribly late,
My wisest of answers is still but to wait.”