Productively time in the waiting room

Usually when in a waiting room I grab some out-of-date magazine, flip pages and skim the pictures. It's a real busy, productive time, right?

Today I made a list of things I needed to accomplish and then estimated how much time it would take to do each of the tasks. I calculated that these tasks for the day would take me about 14 hours which needed to be accomplished in the next 10 hours if I was going to make the church youth group meeting that would last until 10pm. By looking at how often I write blogs, you can see that I don't have a lot of spare time on my hands.

In this stage I'm in of being a full-time student of culture here in Siberia, it looks and feels like a long road ahead. I'm over half way done with formal studies of the Russian language, yet will forever be working on improving my grammar, vocabulary and accent. My plans, taking me to the Republic of Tuva, are full of even further study – not of Russian but of the Tuvan people, culture and language. To my knowledge there are no programs or even study material for learning the Tuvan language. Even if I found an awesome teacher, it doesn't look like there is a way to live in Tuva and dedicate time solely to learning the Tuvan language (having to work or be a full-time student at a university). It's going to take extra effort and a lot of time to learn the Tuvan language.

Why dedicate so much time culture and language study? So that I can understand and communicate to a people group that God very much loves. I'm anxious to get to this point, but it looks like quite a ways in the future. This season of my life can sometimes seem like a long time of waiting.

How is it that while we're supposedly waiting to get where we're going, we have so much to do?

Could it be that we're not really in a time of waiting? Could it be that God wants to work in us today, prepare us for tomorrow and not just get us to tomorrow?

One of my pet-peeves is when people who are "waiting" for God to bring Mr/Mrs Right forget to live today or even give up on their God given desires and callings. So you'd think that I would act against this same unbiblical attitude on waiting in my own life.

Are we going to let times of waiting for answers or results hinder us from accomplishing what God has for us to learn and do now? Maybe I should stop flipping pages and skimming pictures and be productive during this valuable time in the "waiting room".