Faithful waiting is “looking forward to.” It’s joyful anticipation of the heart despite stifling oppression of the mind or body. This was the waiting of Simeon and Anna in Luke 2, and this was the waiting of Abraham and a whole host of others we read about in the Old Testament.
Hebrews 11 begins with “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (vs 1). This chapter names faithful individual after faithful individual. Among them is Abraham. God called Abraham out of his homeland of Ur and sent him on an estimated 1,000-1,200-mile trip to a foreign land, the land of Canaan. Abraham would only know Canaan as a sojourner; it would be many generations before his offspring would become a multitude and actually possess the land. One man, leaving all he’d come to know, living in a tent in unfamiliar territory, no offspring born to him despite being married for decades. But by faith…
… he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God… and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. – Hebrews 11:10, 12
Then there’s Noah. God told him to build an ark, that He would bring a flood of waters to destroy the flesh on earth but keep Noah and his family alive on the ark. What was an ark? What was a flood? What was rain?! Even with what must have been hundreds of questions circling in Noah’s mind, by faith he built an ark, “being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen” (Hebrews 11:7, emphasis added).
Along with Abraham and Noah, the first part of Hebrews 11 names Abel, Enoch, and Sarah as faithful people. And look at what verse 13 reveals to us about them:
These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
Jonathan said on Sunday, “Faithful waiting turns into praise and witness.” I am so thankful for the faithful men and women of the Old Testament. Instead of fixating on the brokenness and bleak circumstances around them, they chose to set their eyes on the promises of the future – waiting for them eagerly even though they wouldn’t see them fulfilled during their earthly years. Is the waiting in my life faithful? Do I allow it to invoke praise? Does it bear witness to those around me that Jesus has come, He’s died for my sins and been raised from death, and He’s coming again to gather all His people to Himself in a new kingdom? Does the waiting in your life produce praise and witness?