streams in the desert: the kind of patience that waits for hope

I really shouldn't be surprised. Since this has been happening so often. But yet again, another devotional, this one from today, that encompasses a variety of the lessons I'm being taught right now through a variety of circumstances in varying degrees in my life. This week, I remember really wrestling with having to go on that desert road once again, without knowing, without having the hope yet. I love what this speaks to, that the type of patience that is required to travel roads like this isn't anything we can muster on our own, but accepting God's will, accepting the roads we don't even know if they will bring daylight again, requires a strength and a grace that comes straight from the Father. I recently heard a man in his 60s share that he often prays, "Lord Jesus, please share your faith with me, for I have none left." Wow.

From Streams in the Desert:

By faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. (Galatians 5:5).

"There are times when everything looks very dark to me—so dark that I have to wait before I have hope. Waiting with hope is very difficult, but true patience is expressed when we must even wait for hope. When we see no hint of success yet refuse to despair, when we see nothing but the darkness of the night through our window yet keep the shutters open because stars may appear in the sky, and when we have an empty place in our heart yet will not allow it to be filled with anything less than God’s best—that is the greatest kind of patience in the universe. It is the story of Job in the midst of the storm, Abraham on the road to Moriah, Moses in the desert of Midian, and the Son of Man in the Garden of Gethsemane. And there is no patience as strong as that which endures because we see “him who is invisible” (Heb. 11:27

It is the kind of patience that waits for hope.

Dear Lord, You have made waiting beautiful and patience divine. You have taught us that Your will should be accepted, simply because it is Your will. You have revealed to us that a person may see nothing but sorrow in his cup yet still be willing to drink it because of a conviction that Your eyes see further than his own.

Father, give me Your divine power—the power of Gethsemane. Give me the strength to wait for hope—to look through the window when there are no stars. Even when my joy is gone, give me the strength to stand victoriously in the darkest night and say,

“To my heavenly Father, the sun still shines.”

I will have reached the point of greatest strength once I have learned to wait for hope. George Matheson.

Strive to be one of the few who walk this earth with the ever present realization—every morning, noon, and night—that the unknown that people call heave is directly behind those things that are visible."

- From the best devotional out there, Streams in the Desert :)