Foreword from A Long Waiting

“God’s readiness to give and forgive is now public. Salvation’s available for everyone! We’re being shown how to turn our backs on a godless, indulgent life, and how to take on a God-filled, God-honoring life. This new life is starting right now, and is whetting our appetites for the glorious day when our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, appears.”
Titus 2:11-13 [The Message]

Waiting, the antithesis of our modern lifestyle, is the keystone of Christian maturity in a world where bigger, faster, and better are the norm. For two millennia believers have waited for the return of the Messiah, yet in that long process we have learned, and are confident through God’s word, that our salvation is assured even in the face of impossible circumstance.

In this, the final poetry/illustration book in a series of five, we are reminded not only of our wait for “the glorious day,” but the pursuit of “a God-filled, God-honoring life” through two of the five sermon series. The Gospel, with 28 sermons to date, is from the book of Romans. And, the series, Stories With Intent, is based on the parables in the book of Luke which taught us profound truths through deceptively simple stories straight from the lips of Jesus.

At the beginning of the 2007-2008 Christian year, waiting for the King to arrive was the perennial theme expressed in the series Advent 2007 as Christmas approached. And early in 2008 we were treated to a short, three-sermon series entitled Time and Place which reminds us of the connection between everyday life and salvation’s promise. Easter 2008 brought us a series of four sermons which took us from the story of the Samaritan woman at the well and beyond Easter Sunday, saying at one point “God’s new age has broken into the present time, our time” in the poem We Live Not Alone (page 39).

In addition to the work from these five Christian Years, we have included in this book the poetry and illustrations from the final few weeks of 2003, the very first illustrations by Grace Ellen Schiel for the Christ Church bulletins. These are presented in the final section of the book entitled To the Praise of His Glory. So here in this one volume, you have displayed the very first and the last poem illustration work of this remarkable illustrator. These illustrations were done in black and white, usually pencil, so they will have a different “feel” to you, the viewer, but are equally powerful and inspiring as biblically based illustrations.

A Long Waiting (page 59), the signature poem of this book teaches that “In waiting is learning,” and as we wait, we witness over time “the deep of sin, the futility of men” and “the wonder of God” in everyday life. Certainly this year we have witnessed “the deep of sin” in everything from national politics to local crime and personal transgressions. And, with Hurricane Ike, we witnessed “the futility of men” in attempting to withstand the natural destruction. “The wonder of God” displayed itself in the sheer power of the storm and in stories of exceptional human compassion told in the aftermath. Yet, through it all, our God remains constant as evidenced in the unchanging rhythms of the seasons, the persistence of His church and the overwhelming grandeur of creation.

These five poetry/illustration books, Finding Ourselves at Home, An Unimagined Force, Bending Toward the Holy, Waiting for God to Speak, and now A Long Waiting have been an extraordinary experience as we witnessed the God-given creativity and unshakable commitment of poet and illustrator each and every week of these five years. You’ll find over 250 poem/illustration combinations in these books, each with a companion sermon delivered from the pulpit of Christ Church … thousands of hours of work to produce these creative, inspiring, biblically based messages. This is the final book in the series as Pastor Schiel leads us in new directions under the Lord’s guidance and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.