Prayer To Face Today's Troubles With Anticipation For What God Is Doing

ANTICIPATION

Today we are invited to live in the joy and strength of anticipation – focusing on things on earth around us through the lens of things eternal.  It’s not an escapist view but rather a view that really puts things in proper perspective.  These troubles will not last forever.  God has a solution that will give us joy and strength for the journey today and peace and blessing with Him forever in eternity.

This is how believers in the early church in Israel were taught to find strength and joy in the middle of tough times of persecution.  They weren’t strangers to this way thinking.  Hundreds of years before Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem as the Saviour of the world, God sent a message about the promised Messiah through the prophet Isaiah that people held onto generation after generation.  You’ve heard the familiar words:

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.  Isaiah 9:6-7

Jesus did come at just the time God planned.  He did live to show the deep love of our Heavenly Father for us.  He did die in our place to pay the unpayable debt that our sins had racked up.  And he gave us this wonderful hope to keep in mind as we go through life, each with our own challenges and troubles:

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.  John 14:1-3

On the day He ascended into heaven, angels gave His followers this message from God:

This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”  Acts 1:11

We long for the day when Jesus Christ will return in all His glory and there will be a new heaven and a new earth – old things passed away and all things become new.  How wonderful will that be?  But for now we must wait and anticipate that wonderful event and allow the view of eternity with God to encourage and strengthen us today.  Let’s have that in our minds and hearts as we pray today:

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.  1 John 3:2

Lord, we find ourselves today in this in between place between all that You accomplished for us by coming to earth and dying for us, rising again to new life, and ascending into heaven to prepare a place for us and yet not yet having returned to take us to that wonderful place You are preparing for us. 

We feel like we are getting a real lesson about waiting in this season of the pandemic.  Teach us how to look at today and this season from the perspective of eternity.  You are inviting us to know You better and to love You deeply as You change our character more and more to become like Jesus.  And we know that job won’t be completed until we see you face-to-face.  We pray today to have the correct response to the waiting we are doing until You come again and make everything new.  Help us to live in faith that You are working out Your purposes in just the right way and You will fulfill them at just the right time. 

Not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  Romans 8:23

Help us to wait with eagerness and even more with an eye always on this hope that we have as we move through the seasons of our life.  You want to fill our minds and hearts with hope and anticipation so we have joy that gives us the strength to persevere through the tough times.  You said:

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. James 1:12

Whatever the next days and weeks have in store for us individually or as a culture, we pray to have Your view of it all.  Help us to look at times here on earth through the lens of eternity and heaven.  Make us watchful, useful, hopeful, trusting, and most of all those who are filled with love for You for all You have done and are doing.  It seems a strange request in these challenging times but You call us to be encouraged by it all and we believe You know what You are talking about.