Hope, Waiting, and the Tension in Between
About a year ago, I read an article by Jon Foreman on the tension held between chaos and control. I honestly couldn’t summarize the article if I tried, but there is one thing he said that I have carried with me since that day, and I’ve never seen tension the same since. He wrote
“…after all, its only when held in tension that a guitar string can sing.”
Leaving home was much harder this time around than it was a few years ago. I was and still am very aware of the things I let go of and the people I said goodbye to. Yet it is because of how painfully aware I am of those things, that I can also fully see and experience and rejoice in the glory and goodness I am in right now.
He is showing me how vulnerable it is to hope again in places that once left me disappointed, and it is in that process that He is restoring hope unto me. Its almost like He’s saying “the only way to learn this one is to do it again.”
So I did. And He said to me “Not yet…right now I’m fulfilling other desires.”
And I cried. A lot. And then I realized that His “not yet,” while painful, was also the most kind answer. It reminded me that there was a time when the life I am currently living was the life I longed to be living. It revealed to me that He is not passive in my waiting, therefore I mustn’t be either.
Isaiah 40:31 says “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.”
The word wait in this passage is not a passive word. It literally means “to wait on” as in a server who waits on a table at a restaurant. Servers don’t wait in the kitchen for the meal to be ready, they offer themselves to be at the service of the honored guest.
Hoping in the Lord requires patience. Waiting on the Lord requires action. Hoping in Him makes me able to wait on Him because it is then that my strength is renewed. Hope does not put me to shame because His love has been poured out into my heart (Romans 5).
The enemy wants to steal my gift of waiting and convince me that I’m not in waiting, I’m in wanting. He has convinced me of this in the past, but today I am convinced that to wait on the Lord is one of the highest honors and greatest gifts to be trusted with. I am sure that His goodness and mercies are following me all my days, even in the waiting.
This season feels very much like that guitar string held in the tension- but it is stretched to hold my song in tune. So as He moves in my waiting, I will move with Him- wherever He goes.
