I'm sitting in my son's home in Fayettville, NC.  We've been here for a few days waiting on their first baby, our first grandchild to be born. It's quiet now. There's been lots of activity because a few hours ago, Katie, my daughter in love, gave the first signs that Baby Beloved is going to arrive soon.They are off to the hospital and we are sitting here in the waiting mode.Waiting.It's what you do when you cannot move forward. You wait at the traffic light for it to turn green so you can go.  You wait in line at the store until it's your turn to be checked out and pay for your groceries.  You wait till you meet the right person you want to marry. You wait until the right job opens up that is perfect for you to step into. You wait for a baby to be born.We hurry up through life so we can wait for the next thing to happen, don't we?  We move fast, only to be stopped again because we cannot keep moving forward. We have to wait.In life, there are many Ecclesiastical seasons told to us in Ecclesiastes 3. "There's a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born--which is today hopefully for my little grandson.  There is a time to be active. And there is the thing called waiting.Waiting is never a passive act. When we wait, something else is happening in us and around us. We wait and become more excited. We wait and become more anxious. We wait and more understanding comes. We wait. Waiting is the posture we assume when we have to practice the sovereignty of God. We relinquish action when we wait. We turn our hands over and say, "I'm done. It's yours, God."  Waiting reminds us that we are not in control. Waiting reminds us that life is not ours to orchestrate, to give, to determine or to control. Waiting is a necessary teacher.So, as I scan my conscious mind right now in the waiting process of little Baby Beloved to make his great appearance, I wait in the realization that I am:  flooded with memories of me being in the position Blake is right now for four times in my life--in the birth of each of my own sons.  Now as a grandfather, I am not nervous. I am not concerned. I am not sweating. I am not filled with anxious thoughts. I am quietly sitting here and talking to God.  I am saying over and over in my mind, "Lord, have mercy. Christ have mercy."  I am breathing a prayer which is short that simply says, "This child is yours. You formed him before the foundation of the world. He is already the beloved before he draws his first breath. His is the beloved."When one waits, like Lazarus had to wait, we sometimes feel that God tarries and Jesus lingers. I hate it when they do that. That sacred cadence that makes them seem to move ever so slowly.  But waiting teaches me that time is not mine to control. I am not the author of what time my grandbaby will be born. I am not the author and I am not the finisher.  Waiting affirms to me that God is in control.Having waited on the delivery of my four sons, now I wait for my own heart to be delivered to a new identity. We've been laughing about what I want to be called as a grandfather. I'm choosing the name, "Pappy."  It's a name that to me is endearing. It's a name one must wear with age. It's a name I will choose to be called and grow into loving hearing myself being called by this name.  It's something close to the Hebrew word for "Abba" which Jesus offered us in his intimate name for his Father. It simply means, "Daddy."  I will be a Pappy in a few hours and until that time arrives, I will simply rest in being the Beloved of God myself.I will rest in this realization.I will wait in this truth.I will relish in the implications for me and for my new grandchild.