You're waiting on something. Or someone. Waiting for a circumstance to change. Or to receive "news" or an "answer". You're waiting on someone to change. Maybe to repent. Or waiting for someone to find you and want to marry you. You're waiting for the next season and wondering what it will be like.
Maybe it's news from a doctor about a diagnosis. Maybe you're waiting for your friend to desire reconciliation too. Waiting for your parents to finally start letting you wear make-up. Or to have a later curfew. Maybe you don't know what you're waiting for and you feel like the "best part" of your life is over.
Lately, as I've been thinking about the things I'm waiting on, God has been impressing it upon my heart to pray that my waiting would be hope-filled.
Hope does not put us to shame. Fact.
See, waiting isn't bad. It's apart of life. It doesn't mean we're discontent. But what we wait ON and what our hope is IN...will reveal our hearts and where our trust lies.
Immediately I recall Ps. 62:1...one of my favourite verses in the entire Bible.
"For God alone my soul waits in silence. From Him comes my salvation."
I am SURE I've written a post on this verse (or chapter of the Bible) before. At least once. So for right now, I will just highlight the words "alone" and "silence". ::long pause:: Ugh. I can't. I can't stop there. We can't wait for God alone and in silence until we know who this God is...and there He is! In the next sentence...from THIS God comes SALVATION.
SALVATION. Being saved. He initiates this. He completes it. He finishes it-- sees it all the way through. Not my idea: His. Not in my control: in His. In our waiting we mustn't put our hope IN circumstances or people changing. We hope IN GOD as we wait. THIS God. The God of salvation.
Hope in Him alone. AND. Without a word. No questions. No suggestions. Watching Him work without a thing to say because we so trust His hand. And timing.
And hope does not put us to shame. We will not be ashamed at any point in our lives because we were "hoping" and we shouldn't've been...
...that is. If our hope is in the right place.
Whats the difference? Well. If I'm hoping in circumstances...maybe that looks like hoping I'm married by a certain age. Or a specific situation has a certain outcome. I would be embarrassed if I boldly walked around declaring "Something was going to be as such" because I was "hoping" in it...and hope wouldn't put me to shame. Uh...NEGATIVE. That's not what Paul is getting at. We are to hope in GOD. Hope in the PROMISES of God.
So instead, I have hope not that I will be married by a certain age, but I hope in His promise that He has plans for me. He knows them. They're for good. Not harm. To prosper me. To give me (EVEN MORE!) hope. And a future.
THAT. Will never put me (or you) to shame.
We can have hope that in our affliction...His Word will give us life.
Hoping in the truth that this present suffering...is not worth the glory that is to be revealed.
I can soar with hope as I anticipate God not doing an "old thing"...but a new thing in my life. (Isaiah 43:18-19)
What are your favourite promises of God? What do you enjoy hoping in?
As we wait, let's "link arms" together in the promises of God. Reminding each other of the glories that we have to HOPE IN...
...that will never put us to shame.
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