Wait…
A word void of our complete comprehension.
Wait entails a prominent part called hope.
For to wait one must have an expectation, a firm hope. Oh my soul waits for You more than the watchmen waits for the morning, the psalmist exclaimed. A few months after I surrendered my life to Yeshua, He lead me to the life of David. I was astonished at the battle his life had been. It was filled with adventures and stories, to literally fill a book. Yet it was his unfailing hope in the midst of trial upon trial that caught my attention. He embraced the tenderness and tumult in his bear human heart, but never lingered there long enough for all hope to drown. He waited! Again and again. And his strength was renewed. His patience must have been quite a sight for the anxious surroundings he often collided with. Waiting on Yah is quite a difficult feat to master in pressing circumstance.
In the book The Life We Never Expected, written by Rachel and Andrew Wilson, Andrew mentions the following:
You can’t process suffering properly unless you remember that Christianity, like Judaism, is a religion of waiting. The world is not yet fixed. One day there will be no autism and no suffering whatsoever, but until that day, we wait. That’s what makes life so exasperating sometimes, especially for those of us who are naturally impatient.
It’s also what makes it full of hope, though. For the believer, waiting is not wishful thinking, as if we’re waiting for a train or a
parcel that may or may not come. Waiting for the Lord is a waiting grounded in certainty, based on his promise (“In his word I hope”), similar to the way watchmen wait for the morning. You don’t get a lot of watchmen these days, but I’ve got a feeling they don’t sit there at 3:00 a.m. thinking, My goodness, this night’s gone on a long time. Perhaps morning has been cancelled today! Maybe the earth has stopped at this particular point in orbit, and the sun is never going to rise again. Watchmen wait for the morning not because they think it’s coming but because they know it is. The night is dark, but the light always breaks. That’s how to wait for the Lord. I take great comfort from emperor penguins on this one: there’s something about the way they huddle together to protect themselves from Antarctic blizzards, each of them keeping a solitary egg above its feet through months of frozen darkness, that says, This is almost unbearable, and it’s almost worth quitting, but the sun is on its way. Hang in there, brothers. The light always breaks. I want to wait for the return of Jesus like that. More than watchmen wait for the morning and more than penguins wait for the sunrise.
In the waiting:
Hope may seem delayed
But on You, my soul expectantly waits
Until the break of first light beams
Until the drought riffs
form a stream
Things will change again and again
Only One who still remains the same
The One on whom my soul expectantly waits
Knowing I can fully anticipate
You to come through
Again and again
You fill me with hope
Again and again
Purifying me like a launderer’s soap
In all four rooms of my heart
You lovingly search every single part
To renew and refine
Until my being is inclined
To live and move in all my ways
To love You through the way I obey
In the valley
There’s joy to be found
In the valley
You sweep my feet off the ground
Spinning me round and round
On the rhythm of
Your heartbeat sound
So I’ll sit and wait
Knowing You are never too late
To answer me in every season
Surely, You planned a purpose and a reason
Even gave a mandate for the mundane
In human terms it might seem awfully plain
Unadorned
Yet, adorned by my Maker
Unadored by the world
Yet, more than Adored
by the One Who is ever Greater.
Therefore
We have HOPE!
Psalm 42:11 ESV
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God.
All humans have the privilege to encounter seasons of waiting. Sometimes we have a clear perspective of what the outcomes potentially might be. Waiting is then relatively easy. But when we wait without the faintest idea of the end result, it can become wearisome and even dreaded. The dear Papa of the prodigal son, must have known this dreaded waiting distinctively. The desire he must have felt to hold his beloved son once more, must have overwhelmed his weary heart at times. It was that same deep desire that drove him daily to open the front door and to sit tirelessly on the porch glancing towards to horizon. The sun met his gaze day by day, yet his son did not come. People thought him to be such a silly fool, for having this hope within him, for allowing the desire of a distant hope to still remain within his heart. Yet none of the remarks could quench the hope that he had, the faith that was solidly embedded within him, that someday his son would return. He had a certainty that locked up this hope within him, rendering him a prisoner of hope. I think it was because he knew the Scriptures well enough to believe that within the waiting, Yah is to be found. So he never sat on that porch alone. The presence of Yah, the Set-apart Spirit, kept him company and comforted him daily.
I clearly remember the wonder-filled excitement and frustration of being very far along in my three pregnancies. I felt the exasperation of waiting in every fibre of my being. Carrying the knowing that a promise will be birthed with time, made each second of waiting worth it. Labour eventually did come. The pain did bring forth life. And joy itself lit up the room and our hearts with each little one that I got to hold in my arms. Hope fulfilled within the waiting. It is profound that hope is tiqvah in Hebrew and that the root thereof is qavah. Qavah is one of the words used for waiting in Hebrew. A few examples of qavah in Scripture is:
- Indeed, let no one who waits on You be ashamed; Let those be ashamed who deal treacherously without cause. (Psalm 25:3)
- Lead me in Your truth and teach me For You are the God of my salvation; On You I wait all the day. (Psalm 25:5)
- Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, For I wait for You.(Psalm 25:21)
- Wait on the Lord, And keep His way, And He shall exalt you to inherit the land; When the wicked are cut off, you shall see it. (Psalm 37:34)
- “And now, Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in You.(Psalm 39:7)
- I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me, And heard my cry. (Psalm 40:1)
- I will praise You forever, Because You have done it; And in the presence of Your saints I will wait on Your name, for it is good. (Psalm 52:9)
- Let not those who wait for You, O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed because of me; Let not those who seek You be confounded because of me, O God of Israel. (Psalm 69:6)
- I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, And in His word I do hope. My soul waits for the Lord More than those who watch for the morning— Yes, more than those who watch for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord; For with the Lord there is mercy, And with Him is abundant redemption. (Psalm 130: 5-7)
- Do not say, “I will recompense evil”; Wait for the Lord, and He will save you. (Proverbs 20:22)
- And I will wait on the Lord, Who hides His face from the house of Jacob; And I will hope in Him. (Isaiah 8:17)
- And it will be said in that day: “Behold, this is our God; We have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord; We have waited for Him; We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.” (Isaiah 25:9)
- O Lord, be gracious to us; We have waited for You. Be their arm every morning, Our salvation also in the time of trouble. (Isaiah 33:2)
- But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)
- Then you will know that I am the Lord, For they shall not be ashamed who wait for Me. (Isaiah 49:23)
- Are there any among the idols of the nations that can cause rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Are You not He, O Lord our God? Therefore we will wait for You, Since You have made all these. (Jeremiah 14:22)
- The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. (Lamentations 3:25)
- So you, by the help of your God, return; Observe mercy and justice, And wait on your God continually.(Hosea 12:6)
(You can download the pdf of these promises here:)
Beloved, in seasons of waiting, may we hold fast to the Author and Finisher of our faith, who is not a man that He should lie, and will fulfil every promise He has spoken. His words will not return void. May hope fill every fibre of your being as you wait with great expectation. Within the waiting, He can be found. He is there with you. Do not loose heart.
In Him we live
and move
and have our being
Shalom
Carmen Tehillah
