Inspiration to Wait

Redecorating and I have a love/hate relationship. Over the past couple of years, I have been slowly erasing the 80’s décor from our home and replacing it with an up-to-date look. Good-bye, Williamsburg Blue, off-white walls, and crafty accessories. Hello, warm, saturated earthy color palate. I’m loving the results. But they come at a price. I’m not just talking price-tag, although that can be enough to discourage anyone. The price I mean is the inevitable mess and hard labor necessary to make changes happen. During the time I’m working on a room, the rest of the house falls apart. I hate that. Stripping wallpaper, scrubbing paste off the walls, and painting are all physically exhausting. I fall into bed each night with aching muscles and throbbing joints. I hate that even more.

So it takes me a while make myself start a new project. I dread the process. How do I eventually overcome the procrastination? I go shopping.

While slowly purchasing accessories and paint, I begin to get excited about the new room. My favorite part is choosing fabrics and creating curtains and other trimmings. As I sew, my enthusiasm grows as things begin to take shape. What I once dreaded becomes a temporary hurdle I am willing to endure, because I now have a vision for how the room will look. I don my work clothes and get started.

Sometimes inspiration is key to making things happen.

One of the most desirable character traits in the Bible is patience. One Greek word that translates into the English word patience is hypomone. It is defined in the lexicon as the capacity to hold out or bear up in the face of difficulty. Hypomone is also translated as endurance or perseverance. Having this kind of patience means our circumstances will not rule our actions. James tells us that without patience, we will be forever immature and lacking. Patience is vital to a healthy faith and relationship with God.

Paul commended the Thessalonians for their patience. As he did so, he revealed the motivation for their endurance: “We continually remember before our God and Father… your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 1:3, emphasis mine) The Thessalonians had patience. That patience was inspired by hope.

When we think of biblical characters exhibiting patience, Job often comes to mind. Here was a guy who lost everything. His children, livestock, house, barns, and even good health were obliterated without warning. By the end of chapter 2, we find the man once called the “greatest man in the east” sitting by a fire, ashes on his head and clothes torn in mourning, pitifully scraping his sores with a piece of broken pottery. Yet throughout his agony, Job endured. He had the patience of… well, Job. And that patience was inspired by hope.

Job knew his God would show Himself triumphant in the end. “As for me,” Job said, “I know that my redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God.” (Job 19:26, NASB) Even while his emotions perceived that God was far from him, Job clung to what he knew to be true: “But He knows the way I take; When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” (Job 23:10, NASB)

Job’s hope was not in his circumstances, for they were clearly awful. Job’s hope rested on the God he loved. He knew nothing was too big for God to handle. He trusted God to use this terrible tragedy as a refining fire in his life. Hope in the character of God gave Job what he needed to endure the crushing blows he had been dealt.

“Why so downcast, O my soul? Put your hope in God,” David wrote. Hope is an expectation that God will prove His faithfulness. It accepts God’s promise to never leave or forsake us. It is a conviction that even the worst of circumstances can be used by Him to conform us to the image of Christ.

We can wait on God, because He is who He is. When there is hope, we can endure.