Balin’ Twine Braid

The “Balin’ Twine Braid”

What does it mean to wait?  I don’t mean wait for the bus or wait for supper.  I don’t even mean wait until you grow up.  The waiting I wish to show you will take lots of time because it involves lots of time.  As I explore what this means to me, I will try to use stories and pictures to grasp the meaning of the word “wait” used by the Psalmist and others.

The Hebrew language contains several words that get translated “wait” in English, so let me shine the light on the star of this show so as to distinguish it from what our English brain leads us to think when we hear the word wait.  Are you a pictorial learner, like me?  If so, look for the pictures in the following description:

H6960-     קוה

qâvâh (kaw-vaw’)

Twist

Bind together, perhaps by twisting

Stretch

Tension of enduring

Be strong

Strength

Strand of rope

Endure

Remain

Spider’s threads, web

Wait or look eagerly for

Linger for

I’ll begin with this example to show waiting as something you might do all your life, like a relationship, maybe.

Psa 25:5  Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day.

Here’s a story ‘bout when I was a little boy:

My grandpa was too old, and I was too young

To buck hay bales in the hot July sun,

So we sat by the truck in a puddle of shade,

And he taught me to weave the “balin’ twine braid.”

The “balin’ twine braid” was simple.  You take three strands of baling twine, tie a knot in one end and start weaving the strands by crossing the outside one over the middle one, first left over middle, then right over middle, repeat.

What my grandpa imparted to me that day was a useful means for an 8-year old to craft a simple rope to be used as a bridle, a lasso, a lead rope, and other cool farm boy stuff.  But, somewhere along in years, probably mid-20’s, when I first got introduced to this biblical word for wait as a rope bound together by twisting, the lights came on and I latched onto the “balin’ twine braid” as the metaphor for my relationship with “Trinity.”  A relationship that involves a lot of time waiting, a lot of time not seeing, but engaging…entwining.  Just as the braiding process involves numerous repeated “wraps,” so does my relationship with a triune God.

Stay tuned for more posts on this subject.  I want to let you watch over my shoulder as Trinity and I do the “balin’ twine braid.”