Praying for a Hope-Filled View As We preapre To Move From 2020 To 2021

THE LONG WAIT

Christmas has come and gone.  We’ve moved past the celebrating, the Boxing Day sales – well, they still continue for a while don’t they?

As we reflect on where we’re at nearing the end of 2020 with vaccination programs somewhat underway but most of us needing to wait for them and health authorities telling us that the next 3 – 6 months could be very difficult yet, it sometimes feels hard to wait, doesn’t it?  And that’s just a few months.

Then I ask the question of my self and all of us, “How long would we be willing to wait for God to show us the fulfillment of His plans?”  We typically want what we want when we want it

God made a promise that He would send someone to bring salvation to the world and the people of God waited and waited.  Those people included a woman named Anna.  For more than 60 years Anna waited for the fulfillment of the promise.  While she waited, she trusted God and served Him.  She didn’t get angry and complain and give up on God in frustration.  She just did the simple things she knew to do, one day at a time and waited.

We are introduced to Anna who was in the temple when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus there a few days after he was born.  Here’s her story:

Anna, a prophet, was also there in the Temple. She was the daughter of Phanuel from the tribe of Asher, and she was very old. Her husband died when they had been married only seven years. Then she lived as a widow to the age of eighty-four.

She never left the Temple but stayed there day and night, worshiping God with fasting and prayer.  She came along just as Simeon was talking with Mary and Joseph, and she began praising God. She talked about the child to everyone who had been waiting expectantly for God to rescue Jerusalem. Luke 2:36-38

Here was a poor woman of no social standing who had made a choice to honour God with her life.  God watched her every day for 60 years as she was watching and waiting and praying to the Lord every day for those same 60 years. And even though she must have wondered, “How long” there came the day when Jesus was brought to the temple and God revealed to her and Simeon that this was the promised Messiah!!  60 years she waited and God was faithful.

We’re waiting for this pandemic to be over and for some semblance of a normal life to return.  We’re waiting to get on with our lives.  What is God’s plan for us?  How long will we need to wait for the fulfillment of events God has planned for our lives.

It likely won’t be sixty years like it was for Anna.  As we’ve said so many times over the course of these months of praying together on these blogs, what we need to understand today is that God's plans are perfect, and God's timing is right.

God wants us to walk with Him and do the ordinary things He has instructed us to do, even in the middle of difficult circumstances. Do the next right thing.  As we do that, we will experience the best life possible each day, and make ourselves available for all that God has planned for our future. 

The Lord is good to those who depend on him, to those who search for him.  So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord.  Lamentations 3:25-26

As this year comes to an end and we prepare move into the next, let’s focus on today, on God’s faithfulness to fulfill His plans, and to do it in every circumstance going forward.

Heavenly Father, we just want to say again today that we trust You.  We trust Your plan  We trust Your timing for our future.  Just like this pandemic with it’s huge impact on the entire world was nowhere on our landscape at this point last year, so we have no idea what is ahead of us in 2021 or the years beyond.  We just know that You have promised to be with us and that You will fulfill Your loving plans in our lives as we surrender them to You.

We always want to see way ahead into the future so we can kind of control our responses and our emotions but Lord, you seldom show us much more than the next step.  We pray to be faithful to what we know, diligent to look for the gifts and the opportunities in each day, and to trust You, the God of all time and eternity.

We admit that it’s hard to wait but help us do that.  As that verse in Lamentations reminded us:  You are good to those who depend on You, to those who search for you.  So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from You.

So that’s what we pledge to do today … to wait with peace and trust.  To wait with open hearts and minds to You.  To lean on You and to give ourselves to loving You and loving others.  Amen