"Do you want to hear something good?" asked my friend Gina the other day. "Sure," said I. "Well, here it is," she said, "a definition of hope. Hope is EAGERLY EXPECTING to see God's goodness."
Eagerly expecting! That sounds an awful lot to me like a treasure hunt, like being six on Easter morning with a basket in my hand and a green spring lawn before me. That sounds like a new mother with the nursery prepared and a few weeks left to wait; like a four year old the night before his birthday.
That sounds like David the psalmist when he wrote and sang, "As for me, I SHALL behold Your face in righteousness", and "I have set the Lord CONTINUALLY before me", and "weeping may endure for a night but JOY COMES in the morning"!
It sounds like Job when he said, "But as for me, I KNOW that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will takes His stand on the earth...Yet from my flesh I SHALL see God; whom I myself SHALL behold, and whom my eyes SHALL see..." (19:25-27)
Or like Moses, or Joshua, or Isaiah and all the other prophets, like Daniel who in his terrifying vision "kept looking" and "kept looking" and "kept looking" until he finally saw what he had been looking for, the Glorious Victorious One seated on His throne; like Paul who said there is nothing in all of life or death or all creation that can separate us from the love of God; like John who saw the great Omega, the Expected One, sweep in the grand finale to all of earth's history.
Or like Betsy ten Boom in a German prison camp, lifting her eyes above the degradation to watch the unfettered flight of a bird across the open sky.
Eagerly expecting. Like the Expected One Himself, who before the darkest night of His existence told us when we see all kinds of havoc and chaos and cause for fear to Lift Up Our Heads--LIFT UP OUR HEADS, y'all, not hide under a blanket; to LOOK UP because our redemption is approaching!
I have difficulty knowing which of all my favorite poems is my ultimate favorite, but this one by Amy Carmichael may quite possibly be it:
"Do we not hear Thy footfall, O Beloved,
Among the stars on many a moonless night?
Do we not catch the whisper of Thy coming
On winds of dawn, and often in the light
Of noontide and of sunset almost see Thee?
Look up through shining air
And long to see Thee, O Beloved, long to see Thee?
And wonder that Thou art not standing there?
And we shall hear Thy footfall, O Beloved,
And starry ways will open, and the night
Will call her candles from their distant stations,
And winds shall sing Thee, noon and mingled light
Of rose-red evening, thrill with lovely welcome;
And we, caught up in air
Shall see Thee, O Beloved, we shall see Thee,
In hush of adoration see Thee there."
Until that greatest of all days, if I am watching, if my heart is paying attention, I know that by the end of today I will have my basket full; that I will have sweetnesses and goodnesses and lovingkindnesses to savor when I put my head on my pillow tonight!
Happy Every Day, peeking around and under and between, living life on tiptoe!
Eagerly expecting! That sounds an awful lot to me like a treasure hunt, like being six on Easter morning with a basket in my hand and a green spring lawn before me. That sounds like a new mother with the nursery prepared and a few weeks left to wait; like a four year old the night before his birthday.
That sounds like David the psalmist when he wrote and sang, "As for me, I SHALL behold Your face in righteousness", and "I have set the Lord CONTINUALLY before me", and "weeping may endure for a night but JOY COMES in the morning"!
It sounds like Job when he said, "But as for me, I KNOW that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will takes His stand on the earth...Yet from my flesh I SHALL see God; whom I myself SHALL behold, and whom my eyes SHALL see..." (19:25-27)
Or like Moses, or Joshua, or Isaiah and all the other prophets, like Daniel who in his terrifying vision "kept looking" and "kept looking" and "kept looking" until he finally saw what he had been looking for, the Glorious Victorious One seated on His throne; like Paul who said there is nothing in all of life or death or all creation that can separate us from the love of God; like John who saw the great Omega, the Expected One, sweep in the grand finale to all of earth's history.
Or like Betsy ten Boom in a German prison camp, lifting her eyes above the degradation to watch the unfettered flight of a bird across the open sky.
Eagerly expecting. Like the Expected One Himself, who before the darkest night of His existence told us when we see all kinds of havoc and chaos and cause for fear to Lift Up Our Heads--LIFT UP OUR HEADS, y'all, not hide under a blanket; to LOOK UP because our redemption is approaching!
I have difficulty knowing which of all my favorite poems is my ultimate favorite, but this one by Amy Carmichael may quite possibly be it:
"Do we not hear Thy footfall, O Beloved,
Among the stars on many a moonless night?
Do we not catch the whisper of Thy coming
On winds of dawn, and often in the light
Of noontide and of sunset almost see Thee?
Look up through shining air
And long to see Thee, O Beloved, long to see Thee?
And wonder that Thou art not standing there?
And we shall hear Thy footfall, O Beloved,
And starry ways will open, and the night
Will call her candles from their distant stations,
And winds shall sing Thee, noon and mingled light
Of rose-red evening, thrill with lovely welcome;
And we, caught up in air
Shall see Thee, O Beloved, we shall see Thee,
In hush of adoration see Thee there."
Until that greatest of all days, if I am watching, if my heart is paying attention, I know that by the end of today I will have my basket full; that I will have sweetnesses and goodnesses and lovingkindnesses to savor when I put my head on my pillow tonight!
Happy Every Day, peeking around and under and between, living life on tiptoe!
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