Heartbeat Hainburg: Hurry Up & Wait

The property being renovated.

Waiting is not one of my strengths. “Everyone” knows, time is money. Move quickly, be efficient, do more in less time: this is good stewardship.

My wife Marcia and I are here in Hainburg, Austria, a small city of 7,500 people, to seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which we have been brought, and to pray to the Lord for it, because it is a very spiritually dark city. We do this largely through business and the relationships that are created in these circles.

Two years ago, we felt led by God to buy this piece of property, perfectly located in the middle of the “old” part of the city. As a business model, one could almost say it was a ludicrous step of obedience. But we trusted God was leading us.

At the moment, we are finishing a major renovation of what will become our living quarters upstairs, and office and business premises on the main floor. However, we’re months behind schedule. That’s a problem for anyone who wants to be a good steward of the resources entrusted to him. Since I believe God is the owner of everything, including property and business, it needs to be managed in accordance with what he had in mind for us to accomplish when he gave us this trust. That is usually understood as getting as much done as possible, as quickly as possible, using as little money as possible.

That makes waiting hard, at least for me. My natural tendency is to push harder, but sometimes despite my pushing, things don’t move very fast, and even stop for a while.

What is God thinking? He could make things move quicker! Why is he allowing this to be so slow, despite my best efforts? Does he perhaps have objectives beyond getting stuff done?

Here is what we’re seeing. God has taken us to the end of ourselves in so many ways, that all we have left is hope in the grace of God alone. In these two years, he has brought so many people into our lives that we would never have imagined. For example, two of my employees were hired for three months. By now, I’ve been paying them for 12 months.

The first time I brought them lunch, I mentioned praying to thank God for the food. One of them said, ‘that won’t be necessary’! We ate without praying. The second time I just prayed without asking. After a while, they started crossing themselves when I prayed. And then they started saying “amen” with me. And recently at lunch, one man just stood at the table. I didn’t know why, until he made a crossing motion, and I understood. He was waiting for me to say grace! I prayed, we all said “amen,” he sat, and we ate.

It’s taken 12 months to get to this point in our relationship. Three months wasn’t going to be enough. God doesn’t mind slowing my construction down to give people time to meet him.

So, I continue to hurry up and wait!