I have been “Love Waiting” since 1987. In eighth grade, I attended my parochial school Bible study class entitled, Love Waiting. It was a contemporary plea for abstinence to a new generation. (To be honest, I was more interested in the good music that the program paired with its sentiments than I was in the idea of celibacy. And, if I had to wait for marriage to be loved, it would be hard, but I think I would have gone on trying to obey God anyway.)
But, I didn't want to wait... I wanted to be loved now! I would fall asleep praying that God would give me love - that I would find love - that He would just give me a taste of it so that I could start to fill this void in me... maybe begin to quench this overwhelming thirst that was consuming me...
Though it was featured in a “Save-yourself-for-marriage" Christian school program, I always just thought that the album's title track was about earthly love alone. (And, I wished more people would simply write and sing songs about who God is and what He thinks about us, so we could know.)
The song described to me a young girl waking up - on the lookout every day - for a man to marry (or at least a man to love her). Later in the song, it seems she finds him and they live happily ever after…
Well, Bully for them! [I mean I was glad that THEY can be happy now, but I always felt jealousy in the back of my heart because she had finally found that someone (maybe because she was a “good-little-Christian” and was now being rewarded for her celibacy all those years - hard fought and hard won - while I was still on the lookout… I still had to be on the lookout for love… I thought, Maybe I'm not ready for love, or the girl wasn't ready for me yet, or that I just wasn't worthy of being loved… Was I not a good enough Christian? Where's MY reward? Where was my someone to love me? Don't all of us deserve love?
We don't often know what we, or other humans, are talking about, and therefore, many times, we don't even think to try and understand something that God would be saying or how He is saying it, Is God speaking something to me here? Is He speaking to me, now? How would I know?
For 35 years I heard these lyrics:
Love Waiting by Billy Crockett
"I know you're waiting
Most every morning
you turn your radar on
There must be someone
just for you
Hey, you there waiting
You tell me it's lonely
longing for someone new
Oh, you keep waiting
'til someone's in love with you
Sometimes love can be hard to find
and sometimes the search can be sad
Sometimes the pain makes it hard
to maintain till tomorrow
I know you're waiting
Most every morning
you turn your radar on
There must be someone
just for you
Hey, you thеre waiting
you got your someone
hе will hold on to you
And He's not waiting
he is in love with you"
These lyrics seem to say, There is someone out there and you just have to find them - YOU have to learn how to see them… Try to be in the right place at the right time. Try to be vigilant; try to keep an active lookout - day and night - for this “someone,” because, if you don't, you might miss them and stay forever unhappy… and it will be all your fault.
These lyrics also conjured the picture in my mind of a man in love with this girl... and she… just… what… doesn't know about it? Is oblivious? Doesn't know what's good for her? That always sounded weird to me - like an incomplete thought or a pithy "Christian" saying - it just didn't make sense... There is some guy out there just loving a girl, but the girl doesn't know it and when she "wises up" she'll finally "see" him and his love for her and then she'll be pleased and at rest from all her searching? I mean, I guess that happens - (it seems like the story of my life and the story of many men and boys if you listen to how Hollywood tells it...) We get that, we've experienced that, We love someone secretly and they don't know and we don't tell them and they are with somebody else that we know isn't good for them and they should really be with us instead…
I, too, was always looking every day for this same love and thought I finally found that love when I found my spouse…
So the song made sense, I guess. It was a nice thought - a nice attempt… But discovering God - the love God had for me (two decades after I met my spouse) - made me wonder, Is the song really just about human love?
I've long felt that the lyric should have been rewritten (as I feel so many songs could be) - to make God more explicit - so we can KNOW, and easily, that God is for us in all situations… And, as I grow older (and grow as a songwriter), I have naturally come to incorporate that “God-view” into my songs, because I want to know what, if anything, God is speaking to me, and pass that knowledge and encouragement to others. What I've discovered is God HAS BEEN speaking to me all along… (I just never heard Him as clearly as I do now).
And, if I write songs that have a deeper meaning - (a relational connection - not only between humans, but also between God and us), maybe other Christian writers do that too, and perhaps, did do that in this instance.
So, today, I looked into this song again.
First, I would need to have the correct lyrics to the song for my journal (and verify them with the actual song).
Do you know how sometimes you can go your whole life liking a song, and never really know all the lyrics to it? (We think and act like we know, but we really don't.) When that part of the song comes on, you mumble through it, (or worse), you make up words your mind or heart "thinks" are right... The line that always gave me trouble with this song is in the middle of the second verse…
Look what I discovered today about the real lyrics and meaning of this song:
"Hey, you thеre waiting
God is your Someone
Hе will hold on to you
And He's not waiting
He is in love with you"
What!?
I was STUNNED to find out that this "hunch" to look into the song again (what I would now designate as “direction” or "leading" given to me by the Holy Spirit), was right! Other people have experienced and are living in this “God-Love" thing that I'm just discovering now... it IS real! And they ARE sharing their findings! Knowing the Truth, and believing it, encourages and saves me.
Mr. Crockett did sing theologically about the love of God for us that has always been here and will always love us forever... (we thought WE had to be the one doing the waiting - the searching - trying to find love on our own, when it is really God that has been waiting for us to discover His love for us the whole time… (it was me that just wasn't able to hear it all these years).
In order to receive the free gift God is offering, we need to surrender to the belief in His Truth: That God created us to be loved from the beginning, and, when our enemy, (sin and the devil), made us unworthy, God made a way through His Son, Jesus, to make us worthy again. If you can believe that, and believe the love God is offering us is a free gift that we don't have to (and could never) earn - to just accept it from His hands to us, open His gift, live in His gift, and use His gift - it will begin to quench your thirst for love as you experience tastes of all the love God has planned for us to enjoy - from now, in ever-increasing measure, throughout eternity future.)
I thought I had been “Love Waiting” since 1987, but in truth, I was waiting for this kind of love all my life. I thought I had to, and could, fill this void in myself... I thought it was up to me to “fill me up,” because no one else was going to do it (or was doing it). I thought it was my job... that's what the world tells us.
But something always felt wrong about "arranging" love for myself (like I shouldn't have to try to make people love me, or search for love, or try to fashion some semblance of a love for myself out of my work or award I had earned... It always felt like love should just "come to us" instead - be easy; like all we have to do is be open to love - not keep our hearts shut tight to everything and everyone because the pain that our heart kept getting exposed to was just too... painful...) But we are not here to love ourselves. And we don't have to (and can't) save ourselves from this loneliness with some self-driven effort. We are here to be loved. It's not the message this world will tell you, but it IS God's message to us. Believe it!
Now that I actually see in print, God is my Someone and He will hold on to me, I can't hear the song incorrectly anymore - whereas before - (I never got the right message.) I had always heard this song, but never really listened; thought I knew, but never double-checked (never investigated for myself) ...until today. This song did intend to send a message about God and from God's perspective - as a love letter to us - from the outset! (Don't change a word, Bill.)
~~~
But then, why did I not "get" this letter to me for so long?
Maybe it's just the difference between a thirteen-year-old's understandings compared to that of a forty-seven-year-old. Or, maybe I have a real enemy that tries to steal the messages of love God sends to me through songs like this one (and through anything else in my life…) The power of God working through His Spirit finally relieved enough of my fear to be able to deliver God's message to me so I could be loved, set free, and believe it.
The message read, “The Father chose me... Jesus created me and found me... The Spirit wooed me” and it just took this long for me to realize that I had the love - waiting for me to enjoy - that I had been searching for all along… just waiting. Love… waiting…
Thank you, God, for reaching out and loving me. Thank you, Billy Crockett, Twila Paris, Michael W. Smith, Michelle Rees, Amy Grant, Kenny Marks, and Leslie Phillips, who were obedient to God's call; and Word Records for putting out this album of music and helping to create this Bible study to help children know the real truth of God - revealed to us in His Son, Jesus, The Living Word. Thanks to all of you who had already discovered God's love for you and wanted us... wanted me... to believe it, and experience His love too! I might have never known, never been saved, and never been loved, without you. (If I can't thank you in person, I'll now be able to in the next life!)
I encourage you to take another look at God - take another listen to what He might be really saying... you might be stunned, and glad you did!