Hoping For What Is Not Seen

It’s hard to wait for what you want. I should know. I’m terrible at it. I’m one of those people who gets impatient when decisions aren’t being made. Who decides she wants something and immediately starts planning steps to get it. Who feels like a failure when her first couple queries didn’t immediately garner an agent or her first few reels didn’t draw in thousands of followers.

Don’t get me wrong. I also believe in hard work, as I mentioned in my last blog post. Always striving, remember? Rather than living? So I think what God has been teaching me lately is related to that. Almost a build-on to it.

I struggle to go to bed at night and I struggle to get up in the morning. Partially remaining burn-out symptoms but also partially PTSD from dreading work for so many years. And so, a few weeks ago, I made myself two lists of Bible verses. One is to read before I go to bed at night to remind myself that God is with me even as I sleep. The other is to remind me in the morning to find joy in the day ahead. It has all the traditional verses about it being the day that the Lord has made, etc., but one verse in particular always sticks out to me, and, though not a well-known verse (at least to me), I feel a breath of relief go through me every time I read it.

“For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” Romans 8:24-25

Remember that whole thing about slowing down and enjoying life instead of always striving? Well, I feel like this verse in particular strikes a balance I desperately needed. I can hope for something – yes, even work towards it – and still wait for it patiently. How beautiful is that? The NKJV says, “we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.” Well, perseverance means “Continuing in a course of action without regard to discouragement, opposition or previous failure.” (Wordhippo). So, then, it really isn’t an oxymoron to hope for something, to wait for it patiently, and to pursue it all at once.

For me, at least, that reminds me that there is nothing wrong if something doesn’t happen right away. That persevering after something that takes its time coming is still a good pursuit and doesn’t automatically mean failure. That it’s the perfect time to stop along the path to feel the sunshine on your face before you keep walking.