We Are Expecting

That is the air we breathe (for in Him we live and move and have our being). As Christ’s followers we hope---having the conviction of things not seen. We lose this hope and we perish.

The hoping doesn’t come easy. Despite the Holy Spirit’s being poured out liberally onto us at our birthday. Page after page the call and the conviction are that we walk by faith. Yet our walk is in the flesh. We are a Missouri people. We have to taste and see things before we believe them. When a loved one battles a disability since birth we struggle to believe. A friend chooses brokenness over life despite hours of prayer and we resist right thinking. Friends continue to celebrate darkness rather than the Light; our life seems so dull and ineffective. The hoping seems something outside of us that we can no longer access.

The Psalmist repeatedly encourages us to look to the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and earth. The Old Testament is full of stories of those that looked to God and were saved either in spirit or in the flesh. This isn’t a Sunday drive in the park. Paul likens the maintaining of expectant, exultant hope to that of fighting a battle. “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh…We are destroying speculations and…we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ…” When gale force winds threaten to destroy our world we lean on truth and choose hope. We wait expectantly for God to speak and move.


We are expecting. We are expecting Christ to come and set things right. We are expecting all Israel to be saved. We are looking forward to bodies that don’t hurt and minds that don’t bend to brokenness. Until that day we cry out. In this season especially we sing,

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.