Daily Devotions for Difficult Days [153] We are all Waiting

  

Everyone Waits for Something

Viktor Navorski, played by Tom Hanks in The Terminal, is on his way to New York when political turmoil in his homeland, the fictional Krakoshia, leaves him stateless and therefore unable to enter the USA. Stuck in New York's JFK airport he ekes out an existence in a derelict part of the complex.

Viktor is waiting for many things.

He is waiting for release from the airport. He's waiting for his homeland to return to peace. He's waiting to get a signature from a jazz band in memory of his dad who was one signature short from his favourite band. He's also waiting for love, for he seems to fall in love with a stewardess.

Viktor's life is your life and my life, for we are all waiting for something. 

Bound up in the human condition and the human makeup is what we call "hope." Hope is the internal feeling that tomorrow will be better than today, or that there is something good or new around the corner, which we cannot yet see. 

So hope is bound up, first, with being a creature who would like to know what good or new thing is around the corner, but being finite cannot see it.

And second - and this is the more important feature of hope - hope is bound up with life in a fallen world, where pain, weariness and suffering is a common experience and hence we look forward to relief from these things.

Christian Hope

It is not that Christians can't or shouldn't hope for a marriage partner, the end of pain, the resolution of a relationship tension, and so forth. These can form the basis of hopeful prayers and actions.

But rising above all earthly hopes, is the hope of our memory verse today:

"we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour." (Titus 2:13)

The return of Jesus is the blessed hope, or the Hope of all hopes, because his return will fulfil every single other hope of ours.  If for example we are waiting for a marriage partner when he returns, well at that moment we shall be "married" because the Lord Jesus will marry his bride, the church on that day. 

If we are waiting for emotional or physical healing, well it will happen on that day, for we will have renewed bodies, brains and minds. 

If we are waiting for a deeper walk with the Lord - something we can deepen here below, day by day - well the veil will be removed and we will see him face to face.

Summing it All Up

Christians experience multiple hopes; this-worldly ones, personal ones, family hopes, church ones and ministry ones. But rising above all of them, we must make, we must ensure, that the return of Jesus Christ in glory and power takes the top spot, for in that hope all other hopes are realised.

A SONG FOR THE DAY 

Our song for the day is a beautiful modern song about the return of Jesus for his bride, the church.

There is a day
That all creation's waiting for,
A day of freedom and liberation for the earth.
And on that day
The Lord will come to meet His bride,
And when we see Him
In an instant we'll be changed

The trumpet sounds
And the dead will then be raised
By His power,
Never to perish again.
Once only flesh,
Now clothed with immortality,
Death has now been
Swallowed up in victory

We will meet Him in the air
And then we will be like Him
For we will see Him, as He is
Oh yeah!
Then all hurt and pain will cease
And we'lll be with Him forever
And in His glory we will live
Oh yeah! Oh yeah!

So lift your eyes
To the things as yet unseen,
That will remain now
For all eternity.
Though trouble's hard,
It's only momentary
And it's achieving
Our future glory.

Nathan Fellingham

You can rejoice HERE.

A PRAYER FOR THE DAY

Our loving Father in heaven,

We thank you for the gift of hope, which enables us in the midst of uncertainty and sorrow to look beyond to a better day.

We thank you for the blessed hope, the hope above all other hopes. We thank you that one day Jesus will return in power and glory and put all things right. We thank you that sorrow, pain and suffering will come to an end.

Teach us to look forward to that day and teach us to view it as the greatest of all our hopes. We affirm today that "we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour." 

We pray these things in Jesus' Name,

Amen.

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash