Keep The Shutters Open

By faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. Galations 5:5

"There are times when everything looks very dark to me--so dark that I have to wait before I have hope. Waiting with hope is very difficult, but true patience is expressed when we must even wait for hope. When we see no hint of success yet refuse to despair, when we see nothing but the darkness of night through our window yet keep the shutters open because stars may appear in the sky, and when we have an empty place in our heart yet will not allow it to be filled with anything less than God's best---that is the greatest kind of patience in the universe. It is the story of Job in the midst of the storm, Abraham on the road to Moriah, Moses in the desert of Midian, and the Son of Man in the Garden of Gethsemane. And there is no patience as strong as that which endures because we see "him who is invisible"(Heb. 11:27). It is the kind of patience that waits for hope.

Dear Lord, You have made waiting beautiful and patience divine. You have taught us that Your will should be accepted simply because it is Your will. You have revealed to us that a person may see nothing but sorrow in his cup yet still be willing to drink it because of a conversation that Your eyes see further than his own.

Father, give me Your divine power---the power of Gethsemane. Give me the strength to wait for hope---to look through the window when there are no stars. Even when my joy is gone, give me the strength to stand victoriously in the darkest night to say, "To my heavenly Father, the sun still shines."I will have reached the point of greatest strength once I have learned to wait for hope. Geroge Matheson

Strive to be one of the few who walk this earth with the ever present realization---every morning, noon, and night---that the unknown that people call heaven is directly behind those things that are visible."

-Streams in the Desert, L.B. Cowman