WAITING FOR HOPE
Psalm 25:1-10, Romans 15:13
Today we enter the Advent season, a season of waiting and anticipating, a time for reflecting and a time for hope. Hope is a word we hear a lot during this season of the year. Hope is an overused word in our culture. Its richness has been cheapened by familiarity. We hope we do good on our test. We hope our ball team wins. We hope the weather is sunny. We hope our candidate wins. Most often when we say, “I hope” what we are really saying is, “I wish.” And like the penny we throw in the fountain and then walk away, we really don’t expect much to happen. But the Scriptures give us a powerful new vocabulary for hope. God’s word gives us a new way of seeing reality and guides us in a way of walking, working and living in hope. Found in the richness of the Psalms and in the words of Paul we can learn a way of hoping that God can use to birth in us an expectant and patient confidence. Rather than mere wishful thinking, there is a trustworthy and sure hope that we can have in God.
In Psalm 25, David declares, “Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.” This is not a passive statement, much like the penny in the fountain. Rather, his hope is active. Because the word there for hope is also understood as “to wait.” To put his hope in God is to experience God in the time and space he finds himself. In the situations and circumstances that play out in his every day life. In holding his questions, his emotions, his doubts, his relationships before the Lord. There is always a time requirement when we have to wait for something. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like waiting. This time of year the experience of waiting is heightened as we wait in longer shopping lines, circle through packed parking lots and sit in traffic while experiencing shorter attention spans and greater impatience.
But David shows us that to practice hope is to actively but patiently wait on God. The Hebrew word for “wait” carries the image of binding, as when the strands of a rope are twisted together. I imagine an old woman in the marketplace slowly and skillfully working the strands of her rope together. Her aged hands wrinkled from years of hard work. She takes her time, her patient work becoming a prayer and she places her trust in the process. In the same way, David places his hope in God because he sees the strands of God’s compassion, his tender mercy, his faithful and loyal love—God’s hesed— binding him to God as he walks with God daily. To wait is to hope.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul prays that we may know that God is the source of hope. God can fill us, completely, with joy and peace as we wait, as we put our trust in Him. This trust we have in God, which bestows joy and peace, leads to an overflowing of confident hope, not through the power of our trusting but through the power of the Holy Spirit. May you and your family find ways to actively practice expectant hope this Advent season as we await the birth of Hope into our world.
Reflect: Have you thought about hope as a spiritual practice? How might your hope be made active in your daily life?
Engage: Find creative ways to practice hope. Be present together as a family at meal times as you light the Hope Advent candle. Share the ways you have been blessed; count your blessings. Slow down for time each day to sit in God’s presence. Be present with friends and neighbors and meet their needs.