Depravity, Grace, and Reckless Abandon: Waiting

“But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:30-31

“Waiting” was written at the end of a really tough week. I wrote this following passage in reflection of that week:

I think I’m finally starting to catch on to the audacious truth of the sovereignty of God, that when we as humans wait until the last moment it’s called “procrastination,” but when God does it it’s called “perfect timing.” To me, the bravery of the Gospel seems to be that when all hope is gone, grim in the face of fear and hopelessness, the day is saved not by a king dressed in shining armor, but by a brazen skinned carpenter with callused feet. When we think the perfect entry would have been at the beginning of the first act, the hero and star comes in at the very last second of the play. We sit on the edge of our seats not giving up hope because we know the hero is coming; almost to tears, but closer to doubt, we pray for the strength to wait. Then when He does come, we faint with grateful exhaustion as we adorn a storm worn smile, saying, “I knew He’d come” (Bidderman, 2007, p. 33-34).

The good news breaks into a world where the news has been so bad for so long that when it is good nobody hears it much except for a few. And who are the few that hear it? They are the ones who labor and are heavy-laden like everybody else but who, unlike everybody else, know that they labor and are heavy-laden. They are the last people you might expect to hear it, themselves the bad jokes and stooges and scarecrows of the world, the tax collectors and whores and misfits. They are the poor people, the broken people, the ones who in terms of the world’s wisdom are children and madmen and fools. They have cut themselves shaving. Rich or poor, successes or failures as the world counts it, they are the ones who are willing to believe in miracles because they know it will take a miracle to fill the empty place inside of them where grace and peace belong with grace and peace. Old Sarah with her China teeth knows it will take a miracle to fill the empty place inside her where she waits for a baby that will never come, so when the angel appears and tells her a baby is coming she laughs and Abraham laughs with her because, having used up all their tears, they have nothing but laughter left. Because although what the angel says may be too good to be true, who knows? Maybe the truth of it is that it’s too good not to be true (p. 70-71).