We wait

We wait. We may wait patiently or we may learn patience along the way, but we wait. We may wait quietly or with shouts, but still we wait.

We hope. We hope, not for what we can see, but for that which remains in the not yet. We hope for the unseen, for hope that is seen is no hope at all.

We trust. We trust in His holy name--in all that He is. We trust a faithful God who has proven Himself. We trust Him with our hearts, our very lives, because He does not disappoint.

We pray, we beg, we pour out, we lament.

We lay our longings at the feet of a good God, and we wait for the time when our desires and His purposes intersect.

When our questions overshadow trust, we give our questioning hearts to Him--this God who walked and sneezed and cried and died and LIVES, this God who put on flesh to save us from our unbelief.

When we dance with doubt and mistake impatience for a friend, He makes up the difference and all the while is changing our heart, aligning it with His own.

When we are shocked as the brokenness below the surface is revealed, we look closer and find Him there, already knowing the depths of our soul, already refining and restoring. Although we are just getting acquainted with our weakness, He knew the extent of it before we took our first breath. He knew He would be our Great Substitute before we knew Him. He knew He would be The Source of our ability to wait and hope and trust.

While we wait, we see the banner of these words, wanting them to be our own:

Yes, Lord, walking in the way of Your truth, Your name and renown are the desire of our hearts.

But when this declaration would be a lie, when we want answers more than we want Him, we ask Him to refine this self-focused, short-sighted heart of ours. That He wouldn't relent until our heart reflects His.

So we wait, we hope, and we trust, with the strength and joy that He gives, for the time when He is our deepest longing and His glory is our one desire.

We wait in hope for the Lord; He is our help and our shield.
In Him our hearts rejoice,for we trust in His holy name.
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord,
even as we put our hope in You.
Psalm 33:20-22