A hope observed. A promise fulfilled.

What’s the longest you’ve waited for something or someone your heart deeply desired, ached, and nearly despaired for?

For me, it was a child.

I had heard it said that easy come, easy go and I now wonder if my heart would too soon have strayed to other distractions if I had conceived with ease.

Perhaps you can also relate to finding it is easy to take some things for granted when we acquire them with ease and how easy it is to lose heart for something when we’ve waited an age for it. During the long while of waiting for our treasure, I was at an all time low when the word came to my heart, nudging me along, “the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.”

Despite knowing that the most valuable things take time to be revealed, like the Israelites of old, alas, I confess, I seldom got it right to wait in quietness and trust. Through every one of the eight four months that bereft my longing and subdued my hope, like a driving rain that would not give up, I pestered the Lord. I envied all who I suddenly became acutely aware of who seemed to be popping out babies all around me. And I often (daily) entertained taking matters into my own hands, even entreating my husband that we should seek out surrogates. But God is faithful, infinitely wise, and incomparably kind. I am forever grateful that in His mercy, He restrained all my foolishness, and lead me away from all paths that sought to cause me to stray from the appointed time for the delivery of His promise to us.

A promise is given

Since the fall of man, a promise was given: that through the seed of the woman, a Savior would come. That there was yet hope for the world and mankind

When and how this Savior would come became the frustrating mystery, and crushing wait under which generations came and died.
Still, the promise was echoed through the prophets
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For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

With each year, decade, century, and millennium, Messiah’s delay caused the hearts and hopes of many to fail.

Hope is said to be the expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen, and it is written that ،hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

A hope is deferred

Looking back to my frustration with how my hope for a child would come to be, and constantly straining under the waiting period, I can abstract our predecessors’ anguish under the oppression of slavery, awaiting the promised savior.

As a married woman, I felt strongly, even entitled to the promise of the fruit of the womb. It seemed quite assured as peer newlyweds would conceive shortly after, and some even before their wedding days. Surely the promise which my heart longed for should soon come to fruition too, I’d entreat the Lord.

But at the end of our seventh year of waiting, I yielded to Omniscience, gathered the remnant shreds of hope, and placed them at the Sovereign’s feet, and as Peter and his friends returned to fishing I went back to the busyness of the marketplace, the hope of a child relinquished.

Little did I know that just then was the Divine appointed time for my dearest dream to come true.

For behold, in the month of our eighth anniversary, unbeknownst to me the promise of the fruit of the womb was fulfilled in me and precisely eight months later, my hope was observed and is now that which I see with awe in my eyes and hold reverently in my arms.

A hope is observed. A promise is fulfilled

We live in the time since the promise of the woman’s Seed was fulfilled, and if we are diligent and resolute, we too may find our deepest hope observed.

There are many things for which I hope:

I hope for a joy-filled and peaceful marriage affair. I hope to live a long sweet life in this realm with my husband, child(ren), and all my family and friends. I hope to accomplish every dream and word the Lord has sowed into my heart. I hope to travel for culture and leisure with my husband, child(ren), and grandchildren. I hope to be healthy and wealthy.

And I’m sure you hope for several wonderful ones of your own.

All our moral desires are pleasant longings. But I incline, and invite you also to lean toward the whisper of our Maker’s hope for us.

Deep down, the Lord God knows the true longing of all creation and every human heart is redemption and restoration to wholeness. And this is the hope He honors in the Promised Seed, the Lord Christ Jesus.

Since the invasion of sin into the world and hearts of mankind, the whole creation has been groaning together in pains that cannot be articulated under the weighty anguish of our afflictions.

But the Spirit himself intercedes for us, for the forgiveness from our sin and reconciliation to wholeness in the image of our Maker.

Because ultimately, this is every heart’s deepest yearning; our soul’s truest longing. Our dearest hope, whether we capitulate or languish in wait for all other temporary and lesser hopes that will never restore us to the wholeness our spirit agonizes for.

But this wholeness is the  hope God, our Maker, observed. A promise He fulfilled and generously honored that appointed moment in time in Bethlehem, and forever at Calvary.

Praise the LORD.

xoxo

Nimi