Devotional Thought – Waiting for Hope

21 Apr Devotional Thought – Waiting for Hope

“For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.” Galatians 5:5

There are days in my life when I look around and everything seems dark and dreadful.  As a matter of fact, there are even days in which is it so dark that I actually have to hope that hope will show up.  Now, it’s bad enough to wait with hope, because having to wait for fulfillment carries its own pain.  But to have to wait on hope to even show up, to look out and not see a sliver of hope and yet hold out hope that hope will eventually arrrive, that is the greatest kind of patience in the universe.  It’s Job in the storm; Abraham on the road to Moriah; Moses in the desert of Midian; and Jesus in the Garden of Gethsamene.  There is no patience that is harder than the patience which requires that we “endure as seeing Him who is invisible.” (Heb. 11:27)  It is waiting for hope to show up.

I can wait through the darkness for the moment when I begin to get a glimpse of the dawn, but when the dawn is invisible to me, that’s when I need a supernatural faith. When I begin to see the first blooms of hope, I can say, “Well, summer is on its way.” But when the blooms of hope have faded from view, it takes a divine strength to say, “It will bloom again tomorrow.”  It is a divine strength because it is a strength that can only be given by the Spirit.  Thus, He has given the world a new kind of superhero – those who can wait.

In the past, the superheroes were those who were unwilling, unable to wait.  They rushed ever onward, forward, to accomplish what the moment demanded.  But He has created a new form of greatness, a fresh form of manliness, because it is in Him, the Son of Man, that that which was a valley yesterday is a mountain today.  Waiting has become wonderful.  Patience has become powerful.  He has shown us that it is possible to look into the cup of sorrow even when there is no star in the sky.  He has shown that we can accept the Father’s will simply because it is His will.  He has shown us that it is possible for our soul to see the cup of sorrow and still not let it go because we know that the Father can see further than we can.

This is my growing, albeit trembling, desire – to have this divine ability to wait.  It’s the power that I see Jesus demonstrating in the Garden.  To look for a star when there are no stars.  Who, when the joy that was set before Him was gone, was still able to stand victorious and say, “I may not be able to see the star, but before my Father it is shining still.”

“Lord, help me to have the power to wait.  To hope when hope hasn’t shown up, because when I am able to wait for hope, I will have reached the summit of my spiritual strength in You.”