Waiting, Hoping and Counting the Stars

Waiting.

There are times in life when we feel like that's all we're doing. Waiting on that job we really want, waiting to move to that country, waiting for the next season in our life, waiting for that special person to show up... waiting for the fulfilment of things we've dreamt of for years, but can't see how they will ever happen.

Graduating from university, I knew it would be a season of waiting that I was entering into. Until you graduate, you live every year pretty much knowing what you've got ahead. After summer holiday comes another year of school. After another year of school comes another summer holiday; and then, yet another year of studying. This repeats until, suddenly, you find yourself graduating with an entire future looming before you, and if you (like me) have not found a job before you graduate, it's a future of uncertainty you see spreading out before you.

And this is when it becomes the most important, the most vital, to cling onto dreams and promises. Especially ones from God, because those are the only ones that will certainly come true. Though we cannot see them now, we've been told they are coming; and so, we wait.

I have been drawing hope from the story of Sarah in the Bible recently. She was the wife of Abraham, a man to whom God promised, 'I will make you the father of nations.' He took Abraham outside and said, 'Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them... So shall your offspring be.' The craziness of this promise is only understood when you note that Sarah and Abraham were both over 65 years old when God first made this promise... and Sarah had never been able to have children.

Sarah waited for twenty-five years for the fulfilment of this promise. Towards the end of this time of waiting, God came again and renewed his promise to her. So tired, so old, so sick of waiting was she... that she laughed. She laughed in the face of God when he told her that he would do the impossible. But one year later... she had a baby boy who would become the father to an entire nation.

Many times it's like that with God, I think. He will bring you to a place where literally nothing can happen unless he does it. He brings us to a place of absolute trust in him, of hope in his goodness and faith in his promises. And when we laugh... He laughs back and turns our world right side up.

And so I wait, knowing that He has a better way. If he wants me in Japan, then I will get to Japan. If he wants me to work and live and love on people there, then he will give me a job which provides enough for me to do that. He knows the month, the day, the hour I will be on a plane. He knows the company, the flat and school. So why do I doubt him and trust my own limited perspective instead?

Corrie Ten Boom said, 'Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.' And she's right. We don't know anything, at times; about where we're going to be, what we're going to be doing in five years, one year, even a week from now. But God does. So what can I do but trust in Him, and do the best I can with the time & opportunities I've been given right where I am.

'Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.' {Romans 8:24-25}