It's human nature to be looking, straining ahead to see what's coming next around the bend, hoping it's better or bigger than what's going on right now. We're always waiting for something or someone--to change, to be different, to improve, to just be. When we're children, we're waiting to be teenagers with all the rights and privileges thereof. When we're teenagers, we're waiting to go to college or start a career. When we're young single adults, we're waiting to meet the love of our lives. When we've met them, we're waiting to get married. Whether we're single or married, we're still waiting...for the better job, the bigger house, the nicer vacation...and on...and on.
It's not that hoping for something better or waiting for the next thing is inherently wrong. In fact, I think the hope for something better to come was placed within each of us by God Himself. The desire for bigger and better, as God designed it, is meant to point us to the life He wants us to live with Him. It's to remind us that there is something, Someone, better than this world around us and all that it has to offer. It's to teach us to long for our eternal home. We are meant to be waiting in hopeful expectation.
The problem is we often get caught up in waiting for all the wrong things, things that ultimately don't satisfy. The Bible says over and over again to "wait on the Lord" and to "put your hope in the Lord." As followers of Christ, our hope, what we're really waiting for, is our Bridegroom to come collect us, His Bride, and take us home to spend eternity serving and worshiping at His feet.
It's just so easy for our eternal focus and hopeful expectation to be lured away by the birth pains of the world around us caused by sin. The world is groaning, waiting for restoration, and often we begin to hope in the empty promises the world makes to us. We can even be distracted by good things or things related to serving the Lord--the hope of a new ministry to fulfill our calling from God, the desire for a godly mate to serve the Lord with, the need for God to reveal to us what the next step of obedience is. All of those things are important parts of walking with the Lord, and it is true that the Lord longs to give us the desire of our hearts (Psalm 37:4), but I think each of those things has the potential to throw us off the course of waiting on the Lord and hoping in Him alone.
Jesus said that we are to seek His Kingdom and righteousness first, then all other things will be added to us (Matthew 6:33). That's the right order--seeking, hoping for Christ's return and our lives in His Kingdom to begin, and then, seeking to serve Him and grow His Kingdom while we're waiting in hopeful expectation here on earth.
There's nothing more satisfying, nothing more hopeful than waiting on the Lord. When our hope is in the Lord, we can count everything else as loss for the sake of knowing Him better (Philippians 3:8). No matter what our earthly circumstances or the birth pains we are going through, when our eyes are fixed on the Author and Finisher of our faith, we can say with the Psalmist,
"I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, and in His Word do I hope. My soul waits for the Lord, more than watchmen for the morning; indeed, more than the watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is lovingkindness, and with Him there is abundant redemption!" (Psalm 130:5-7)
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