Character Tansformation Through Waiting

CHARACTER TRANSFORMATION THROUGH WAITING

Everyone has to go through the anxiety of waiting.

We wait in line to pay our grocery bills.

We wait in line to see the doctor.We wait in line to transact business at DMV.

We wait in line to board an airplane.

We wait in line to get our food during our lunch fellowship.

Waiting has become a normal routine of our lives.

When we see a line, we automatically look for the last spot and fall in line because we don't want to wait longer by not falling in line.

And so, we count the number of people in front of us.

Each time the number decreases, we know we are progressing and we are at ease.

But sometimes, waiting can become a source of misery.

Several years ago, executives in a busy airport faced a troubling customer-relations issue.

The passengers were lodging on unreasonable number of complaints about the long list at baggage claim.

In response, the executives increased the number of baggage handlers working that shift.

The plan worked: the average wait fell to eight minutes, well within industry benchmarks.

However, the complaints persisted.

Puzzled, the airport executives undertook a more careful, on site analysis.

They found that it took passengers a minute to walk from their arrival gates to baggage claim and seven more minutes to get their bags.

Roughly 88 per cent of their time, in other words, was spent standing around waiting for their bags.

And the passengers don't want to stand and wait.

They would rather do something while waiting.

So, the airport decided on a new approach:

Instead of reducing wait times, it moved the arrival gates away from the main terminal and routed bags to the outermost carousel.

Passengers now had to walk six times longer to get their bags.

Immediately, complaints dropped to near zero.

The reason? Their minds are occupied while walking.

As they walk, they converse and think.

The conclusion: When a person is unoccupied while waiting, his time is a drudgery.

Waiting becomes a hard and tedious work.

People will become bored, idle and unfulfilled.

But when people's minds are occupied, the waiting will not be a torture but fun and entertaining.

Every waiting time therefore must be occupied and filled with purpose.

And so, if you are doing something while waiting, you will not be bored, disinterested and fatigued.

My wife and I when we wait in airports in between flights, we read books from our Kindle.

We travel relaxed knowing that we spent our time wisely and intelligently.

Today, we will go back to the life of Joseph.

He was a victim of injustice by his Egyptian master.

He was faithful and did his job well but he found himself in prison.

He kept his dream in his heart.'

He knew that someday, his dream will be realized.

He had to go through a long time of waiting, not just months, but years.

He had to wait for God's perfect timing to lift him up.

During these times of waiting, his mind is occupied while his character was being transformed.

He had been assigned a responsibility while in prison.

As he fulfilled his responsibility, his character was being molded and fashioned by God.

Do you know that our godly character is the most important investment that you could make in our lifetime?

Yes it is.

It is worth investing our time, effort an energy.

It is worth cultivating, nurturing, improving and developing daily.

Why? Because godly Character is the essential prerequisite for a respectable reputation.

A person's character is who they really are.

Abraham Lincoln once said: "Character is like a tree and its reputation is its shadow.

The shadow is what we think of while the tree is the real thing."

And so, how others perceive you is as strong as your character.

Let me put it this way.

Everyone has a "public" face and a "private face."

The public face is what people see.

The private face is what people don't see.

Most of us tend to act much better behavior around others than we do in private.

But if we have developed our godly character, we have the same godly behavior in private and in private.

We are not hiding anything.

The key to do that is a life transformation.

Today, we will talk about character transformation through waiting.

As we wait, our Christian character can be transformed for the better.Three important things that Joseph did while waiting upon God. These are also the three important things we need to do while waiting.

I. WHILE WAITING, WE MUST BE BUSY CARING FOR OTHERS. (vs. 6-7)

6 When Joseph came to them the next morning, he saw that they were dejected. 7 So he asked Pharaoh’s officials who were in custody with him in his master’s house, “Why do you look so sad today?”