In The Waiting And The Hoping

Putting life on hold for seven years is a death sentence when you’re fifteen. “So Jacob served seven years for Rachel….” Hope is tied to waiting. We wait because we expect an outcome. We save money (hoping). We exercise (hoping). We do chemotherapy (hoping). Jacob waits (expecting).

Probabilities differ. The outcome isn’t assured---hence hope. Money into stocks is a safe bet. She’ll get pregnant. You’ll get hired. Nobody’s hiring. Housing market implodes. Baby doesn’t come. The cancer doesn’t go into remission. Jacob had the sure bet, right? 

Waiting is wired into process. The process has purpose. We want instant. Character grows in the waiting. Jacob for Rachel, Israel for the promised land, mother for baby, the new car, the retirement. In the waiting God is working.

“Put your hope in the Lord,” is a continuous cry in the book of Psalms. In the desire, in the stretching, in the asking, during the doubting this is what God longs for.

The sweetness of the prize colors the waiting.  Jacob opens his eyes in the morning and... it’s Leah!  Laban lies!  Jacob agrees to work seven more for Rachel. One could grow angry and bitter in such circumstances. Yet the story says that it was to Jacob as a few days because of his love for Rachel. How sweet is our prize?

In difficult days and long seasons let’s check our hearts.  Are we hoping in God? Is our prize worth it? Changed for better or becoming caustic? Morning light may startle us with different realities.  With eyes on the prize we’ll look back and see. Our waiting was but a few days.

Burning Bushes, Revival And Rest

Vacation week couldn’t come fast enough. I arrive at this week tired of working.  Tired of people.  Tired of me being tired of people. Tired of all the little things that bug me when they shouldn’t.  But they do. Road-tripping to Utah. Leaving humid beach-cold for dry summer hot. Hoping God would speak. Looking for revival.

No burning bushes. In red rocks, in rushing water, slot-canyons and slick sandstone God’s work is evident. My soul finds rest in nature as always. Replenished joy in desert driving; long talks with the wife. Coming alive through stair-stepping hikes and slow-river walks on slippery rocks upstream. Heat feeling good. Invigorated but not energized for work; for people, for little-foxes that spoil the vines.

Home through arid one-grey-colored desert to attend the sons’ Indian-themed engagement party. To see on my newsfeed that Anthony Bourdain is dead. A post on Facebook tells me cancer took a high-school friend. The miracle of dating; the dire end of depression.

My father had his dark days. He once told me that sunrises motivated him to live. I am fortunate to delight in sunsets (sunrises come too early) and the glories of nature. Laughing with family and friends is a well of the purest water for me. This confluence wets my tongue for more of life.  No burning bush?  Perhaps the fire was there all along.