The power of waiting

We want to see, but faith is “the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1b ESV).  Or perhaps I should say “I want to see” because that’s what my circumstances have been revealing to me about myself.

I consider myself to be a woman of faith after so many years of learning to let go of my problems to God.  I used to be tense and driven and desperate at heart.  I was fearful and full of unacknowledged grief.  I lived alone even when surrounded by others.  That I should have turned to God and believed that He was real and could be trusted took faith.  The practice of choosing to believe and let go of my controlling actions, and even thoughts, was the practice of faith in practical ways.  God arranged for the rubber to meet the road over and over and over.  And yet He’s not finished.  There is a different kind of faith-action that He’s teaching me about.  It’s really the faith of inaction, or waiting on the unseen.

I wanted to write about waiting on God but He helped me out by putting it together with our hope in the unseen when my daily reading began today at Hebrews 11.  Those first words arrested my attention:  “Now faith is the assurance (substance in NIV) of things hoped for, the conviction (evidence) of things not seen.” 

This really isn’t new, is it?  We often express our faith by waiting for something we hope for.  Maybe we don’t hope with much assurance or conviction, but we hope, we ask God, and we wait.  Maybe it’s for prodigal children to turn back toward home, or for remission of an illness, or strength to endure the decline of a parent.

Sometimes the “hope” can be more like wishful thinking.  And the “waiting” can be an escape from realities that must be faced before real change can occur.  But God says true hope has substance and reality as if what is unseen is already there.  And when we have that what we hope in becomes invincible.

If we have no evidence in the circumstances, no substance of what we long for in our world, no conviction in our heart of truth that defies the obvious external reality, then true Biblical faith gives us evidence and conviction.  It allows us to see what remains unseen.

This is the faith I desire to grow in right now for an important relationship.  There seems to be no more action to take on my part.  There are no right words to say that will open up understanding.  There is just God’s very precious answer to my cries, saying “Let me handle it”.  When everything in me wants to do something or say something or even think something that will fix it or relieve it, His word to me is clear.  He will handle it, and I am to let Him.

And so that’s where waiting comes in.  Waiting on the Lord is not helplessness, it is powerful.  It is the faith that may witness the moving of mountains.  It is being held in the strong heart of God while He does things that no human being can accomplish. 

Zion National Park

Hebrews 11:3 reminded me that “by faith we come to understand that the universe was created by the word of God” and that everything we see, everything, did not come from anything visible.  If God created the mountain from nothing we can see, why wouldn’t He be able to move it at His will?

But this is where we can falter, because we can’t always know or understand His will or purpose.  We can know He is good and that He promises the work all things together for good (Romans 8:28), but we don’t know what it will look like.

Hebrews 11:13 reminds me that Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob “all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar”.  All the heroes of the faith commended in the verses that follow were looking ahead to the promise of Christ.  He was unseen to them in the future and he is unseen to us in the past.  But he always existed and is always real.

I sense God calling me to join hands with those who “lived in tents” while they looked forward to "a city with foundations whose designer and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:9-10); those who “acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on earth” and “desire a better country, that is a heavenly one.” (verses 13 & 16).

This is not to say that the relationship I long for will not come to be in my lifetime, but it is not a guarantee that it will happen as I expect, and it is not the basis for the peace I seek in waiting on God to “handle it”.

I want my peace to be filled with the faith to love rather than self-protection, self-justification or anger.  God offers to hold my heart and hold my hand as I wait with Him and for Him.  This is hard and yet a glorious opportunity.  Is what God is doing more valuable than what I want to see and have now?  I believe, but help my unbelief.  I am waiting.