Wait!
Hope Is Waiting For God To Act, Confident God Will
by Eric Elkin
Do crosswalk buttons actually work? I have often wondered this as I am waiting to cross a busy street. Sometimes I wonder if those buttons are just a gimmick to help pedestrians feel in control of their lives. Perhaps traffic controllers studied human behavior and decided that giving them a button helps them be patient.
If this is true, then it works for me. I feel calmer every time I push a crosswalk button. Well, calmer might be an overstatement. Proactive may be a better descriptive word for my attitude. In New York City, CNN discovered that only 100 of the 1,000 buttons still worked. However, I have never met a New Yorker who waited for a light to cross a street.
In the Twin Cities metro area, the buttons speak to you. When you push one, a very mechanical electronic voice shouts, “Wait!” I love those buttons. They bring out the 1980’s hip-hop DJ in me. I’ll press the buttons to create a song, “Wait…Wait, Wait, Wait…Wait, Wait..Wait.” Inevitably, my wife will look at me and say, “Are you happy now?”
Lately, my entire life feels like I’m standing at a crosswalk pushing a button. When can we sing in church again? Wait! How long will it take for those cabinets to come in? Wait! When will COVID go away? Wait! Often I’ll ask the same questions over and over, expecting a different answer. Each time the answer is, “Wait!” It is like I am pressing the crosswalk button attempting to make a song.
Wait is an un-American word. Our ancestors may have been forced to wait, but we live in a modern world. A comedian famously joked about our impatience with cell phone reception. Our voices get converted to radio waves. These radio waves get sent to a cell phone tower and then to the person we are calling. We get huffy if this takes more than 2 seconds.
COVID-19 has educated us that technology cannot speed up everything in the universe. Whether we like it or not, there are some things we must wait to receive. Perhaps it would be better if each home installed a crosswalk button. A placebo device to help us feel productive while waiting.
The Hebrew word translated as hope actually means to wait. Therefore, Psalm 130:5 could be translated, “I wait, Lord. My whole being waits, and I wait for God’s promises.” Sort of sounds like someone hitting the speaking crosswalk button.
Hope is about waiting, yet it is also an intentional decision to reframe your mind. The psalmist understands things are bad, and there is no sign that they are getting better. Still, he expects God to rescue the people from despair.
Biblical hope is about looking to the past to remember God saves so we can look to the future with confidence. God did not save one time, but over and over again. Love, undeserved love, was the only reason God decided to act and rescue.
So we need to hear the words, God loves us. It reminds us that God will save us. This turns our waiting into hope. It may not seem like things will get better, but God has done crazier things in the past. Why not again?
Click to read Psalm 130
Reflection Questions:
How well do you do with waiting?
What helps you wait patiently?
How would you describe hope?
Where do you want God to act in your life?