Word for the Week: Living with Waiting
I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint. Then the LORD replied: ‘Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For 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.’
Habakkuk 2:1-3
Habakkuk’s first prayer of complaint asked God why he was not dealing with Israel’s problems. The answer came that God was raising up the Babylonians to bring judgment. Habakkuk’s response was a cry of shock and dismay that God was working through such a wicked and unrighteous nation. Once again he waited for a word from the Lord. The word came. There is a vision and it is true. God is still the judge and the day will come when everything will be sorted out. The vision of the world ‘filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea’ (2:14) will be fulfilled in the end. But there is an appointed time and meanwhile wait.
But what kind of waiting does the Lord require? Some have seen human life as one of endurance in a ‘vale of tears’. Others have mainly spoken of the drive to spread the gospel and evangelise. Others have shrunk within a spiritual world, shutting out the world of violence and injustice, poverty and luxury, while waiting for Christ’s return.
That vision of the appointed time, the vision described over and over again by Old Testament prophets (Isaiah 65:17-25, for example) and New Testament visionaries (Revelation 21:1-8), is our goal and an inspiration for life. It is a biblical vision that includes a beautiful city of justice and joy, jewels glittering in the sunshine, trees and fields that clap their hands, a banquet, songs of glorious rejoicing, loving recognition of old friends and above all the Lord at the centre. At the same time as we wait for its fulfilment, we are called to bring some of the wonder and the glory of that vision of the future into today, working for human flourishing, for environmental care, for justice for the poor, for more parties.
So we work to bring all the glory of his rule and reign into our own small worlds while we wait. We write the vision and make it plain on tablets (2:2), we speak and witness, and above all we demonstrate the love and mercy, grace and forgiveness of the Lord in every way we can.
That's how we wait.
Margaret Killingray
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