Waiting in Hope

 

On this particular morning, on this particular manicured lawn, sits a chair. It has seen better days. It is well worn and one-armed. It feels to me that it should not be a solitary chair, but should be grouped around a table with other similar chairs. But here it is, at the curb all by itself.

I was struck by the fact that it is angled to look down the street in a specific direction. It wasn’t squared up to the curb as discarded furniture always is in my neighborhood. It gave me a sense of anticipation, of excitement. Someone is on their way. There is something to look forward to in the very near future. I wonder who? I wonder what?

This took me back to when I was a little boy and would climb one of the trees in our front yard every afternoon about 5.15 to keep watch for my daddy’s truck as he made his way home from work. When I spotted him, I would jump down and race to to the top of the hill so that I could hop on the step side and ride down to the driveway. I remembered the cool Spring mornings waiting for our carpool to Vacation Bible School. I couldn’t wait to get to church. This scene brought back fond memories of hot summer days, looking longingly down the road for the arrival of the Bookmobile to bring the world to my hands and to my imagination.

The Psalmist writes about waiting in hope with these words, “Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.” What a difference it might make in our lives if we had the same sense of childlike anticipation and excitement as we “wait on God”. What if we looked forward to new understandings? What if we looked forward to the new things God wants to do in both our own lives and in the world? What if we lived every day with our chair angled in a direction that pointed us toward the God on whom we wait?

Peace.