This week, I had to serve on jury duty. I know what you're thinking: every great story starts off with someone saying that they had jury duty! Okay, so not really!...but, I actually had a wonderful experience while serving on jury duty! The case that I was assigned was a criminal case, and I found the overall experience to be extremely interesting, entertaining, and educational.
As enjoyable as my experience was, there is one thing you should know about jury duty (if you have not yet ever been selected for jury duty): there is a BUNCH of waiting! In my experience, there was waiting in the courtroom so that the lawyers could have their arguments. On the first day, you wait to hear your name called. You wait to hear for instructions. You wait to be able to enter the courtroom. ....it really never ends!
While waiting is probably one of the top hated things in America, something really cool happened while I was waiting to enter the courtroom this morning. I, along with the 11 other jury members, sat in the jury lounge and was waiting to be summoned into the room. They were taking forever in the courtroom!...They told us to be there at 9:30, but we actually did not enter into the room until around 10:45! While I was waiting, an older gentleman on the jury came and sat next to me. We started to have small talk about a number of different topics....and then, suddenly, it happened! A door became open in the conversation where I could bring up my faith! I seized the opportunity, and eventually got to know that he was a brother in Christ! Shortly following this encounter, he went to the bathroom, so I opened up my devotion book to do today's devotion. Not even a minute later, another woman on the jury then came and sat next to me and asked me if I was reading for school. Another awesome opportunity! I then told her that I wasn't reading for school...and then I got to discuss my faith with her as well!
Following both of these encounters, I got to think about how amazing it was that God allowed for such events to take place. What was especially cool about it was that the event didn't take place within the walls of a church or Christian camp, in a place I planned to have a serious discussion in, or even during a time I would have expected. These awesome events took place while I was just sitting and waiting around for other events to occur!
In our society today, we have all grown to be at a constant pressure to not want to wait. We don't want to wait for Mr. or Mrs. Right...we want them now. We don't want to wait to get that job we've been longing to have...we want it now. We don't want to wait for this difficult semester of school to be over with....we want it to be over now.
The funny thing about waiting is that we always try to make the waiting disappear, without having to contribute much to it. For example: if we are ever in a waiting room, we normally grab a magazine or browse through our cell phones just so that the time will pass with greater ease.
Some people look at waiting as a burden: a period of time that they much rather be doing other things with their life. However, the way I see it, there is no greater time to serve the Lord than while waiting! Instead of putting all of our focus, time, and energy into what we are actually waiting on, why not take that precious time and use it for the uplifting of His kingdom??
1 Corinthians 10:31 says: "So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."
Whatever you do. I'm pretty sure that "whatever you do" includes all that you do while waiting as well! So next time you find yourself short on patience while waiting, think of ways that you could glorify or serve Him instead.
For extra encouragement during your time of waiting, here's the link to a song that I find to be absolutely amazing!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-M7oGrOa2I
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