They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. John 8:6-8  

I was discussing this passage with our Tuesday morning men’s group and we thought it was interesting how patient Jesus was with these men. How he waited for the Holy Spirit to convict them. Rather than get angry like he did at the money tables, or tell a parable like he did on the hillside, or quote Scripture like he did with Satan, he simply stooped over and wrote on the ground. By waiting and writing on the ground he gave time for these men to ponder their intentions. By waiting, he forced them to consider the ramifications of the rocks in their hands. I believe that sometimes God has us wait so we can hear his voice. I believe that it is through the difficulty of staying silent the voice of God has room to speak.  

Novelist and Southern writer Walker Percy, who lived all his life in Louisiana, died in 1990. He came from an extremely dysfunctional family. Sadly, many of his closest family members committed suicide. After being raised by a cousin, Percy attended Chapel Hill University. In 1937, he entered Columbia University and received a medical degree. At the age of 26, while working as an intern at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, he contracted TB from a cadaver. This sent him into an extended period of recuperation, forcing him, in his words, to "not so much change my life as give me leave to change it. While he was recovering, Percy read extensively from Dostoevski, Thomas Mann, Augustine, Aquinas, Kierkegaard. By the time he was 30, after four years in this medically-imposed "waiting room," Walker Percy knew what he would do with his life. He would become a writer. For Percy, a waiting room became a discovery room: discovery of himself, and discovery that the claims of science are not the only valid methods of acquiring knowledge about the world.  

Maybe you are in a waiting room today and it is frustrating to you. You want to get better, you want to move on, you want to get answers. The purpose of a waiting room is to take your turn to see the physician. The Great Physician wants to see you, but only when you are ready. He wants your waiting room to turn into a discovery room. May the God of abundant knowledge reveal His plans to you.    

In Christ’s Love and Service,  

Pastor Paul