Waiting and Hoping
By Lewis Cawte (Derrivitive of Poppies Field in Flanders.jpg by) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
This Sunday is Remembrance Sunday in the UK, an occasion I have very mixed feelings about. But I think one thing we can all agree on is that we are waiting and hoping. Waiting and hoping for peace, for wars to end; for people to stop being enemies; for the day when we may all feast together; for there to be no poor and needy; when we can all know God wiping away all our tears.
How we long for that time
Isaiah 25:1-9
A Prayer of Thanks to God
25 You, Lord, are my God!
I will praise you
for doing the wonderful things
you had planned and promised
since ancient times.
2 You have destroyed the fortress
of our enemies,
leaving their city in ruins.
Nothing in that foreign city
will ever be rebuilt.
3 Now strong and cruel nations
will fear and honor you.
4 You have been a place of safety
for the poor and needy
in times of trouble.
Brutal enemies pounded us
like a heavy rain
or the heat of the sun at noon,
but you were our shelter.
5 Those wild foreigners struck
like scorching desert heat.
But you were like a cloud,
protecting us from the sun.
You kept our enemies from singing
songs of victory.
The Lord Has Saved Us
6 On this mountain
the Lord All-Powerful
will prepare
for all nations
a feast of the finest foods.
Choice wines and the best meats
will be served.
7 Here the Lord will strip away
the burial clothes
that cover the nations.
8 The Lord All-Powerful
will destroy the power of death
and wipe away all tears.
No longer will his people
be insulted everywhere.
The Lord has spoken!
9 At that time, people will say,
“The Lord has saved us!
Let’s celebrate.
We waited and hoped—
now our God is here.”
But as we long for it, what are we doing to bring it about?
As we join in this prayer of thanks to the God who saves us, what are we doing?
- for the poor and needy in their time of trouble? (v4)
- to prepare a feast where all nations can dine? (v6)
- that people are no longer insulted? (v8)
We wait and hope to celebrate what God will do, but we can be a part of making it happen now where we are, in the places where God has called us to live out his ways.
Lord,
I wait
and I hope,
for the day to come
when your work is done.
When there are no more enemies,
no poor,
no tears,
just love and peace in you.
As I wait,
I pray that I will allow you will equip me
to bring about those things
where I am,
as we wait and hope
in you
Pam's Perambulation 