What are you reading, Emma Hartman?

After helping Dr. Timms film a video companion to his book Sacred Waiting: Waiting on God in a World that Waits for Nothing, I immediately wanted to read it for myself. The ideas of “waiting for God” and “God’s timing” are not new concepts to me, but Dr. Timms goes beyond them. He calls his readers to wait on God, using a waiter at a restaurant as a metaphor for how we should be present to serve God rather than waiting for Him to fulfill our requests and serve us.

Using five major figures from the Bible, Dr. Timms explains what it means to wait on God and how spiritual growth comes naturally from waiting. He encourages readers to wait and endure like Noah, wait and trust like Abraham, wait and learn like Moses, wait and worship like David, and wait and obey like Jesus. Each of these figures is seen from a new light in this book, highlighting the theme of waiting on God, but he also delves deep into the intimate relationship they had with God.

Along with these figures, Dr. Timms relates waiting on God to the four major seasons in the church calendar: Advent, Lent, Easter and Pentecost. For each event, he shows how waiting led the people involved to a much deeper experience with God than they could have imagined. Dr. Timms’ interpretation and explanation of these traditional church events deepened my understanding not only of the events themselves, but also of the amazing power that waiting in His presence and in service to God had on the spiritual lives of those involved in the initial events and how the same impact can be had while participating in these church traditions.

I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone looking to deepen their relationship with God and see their relationship with God from a new perspective. When I have time to read more, the next book I’d like to read is Crazy Love by Francis Chan.

Emma Hartman is a Fullerton native and majors in Biblical Studies. She works here at the HIU library and enjoys listening to music in her spare time.

Sacred Waiting: Waiting on God in a World that Waits for Nothing, Bethany House, 2009.

Sacred Waiting: Waiting on God in a World that Waits for Nothing may be purchased from Bethany House, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and Better World Books.

You may also find this book at your local library by searching WorldCat.org.

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