I hate waiting. I think of waiting rooms, where you sit, leafing through a two-year-old copy of Peoplemagazine, with a quiet, half-formed dread, thinking of all the things you are not getting done.

The word wait, although it’s a verb, seems inactive, passive. In English, in our culture, waiting has that connotation. Sitting around and tapping our feet. Not really doing anything. Wasting time.

But the Hebrew word in the original text, qavah, was full of energy and faith. Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance notes: “The word stresses the straining of the mind in a certain direction with an expectant attitude…a forward look with assurance.” Its more-ancient meaning is to collect or bind together— active words.

Click to read the rest of this post, which is taken from a book I wrote for Guideposts called Mornings with Jesus.