Waiting with Uncertain Hope

Today’s reading from Isaiah 64 gave me verse 4:

"No eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him. You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways."

And the reading from Mark 13 gave me verse 33:

“Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.”

Isaiah got my attention with the words “those who remember you in your ways.” Not remembering God in my ways, but a remembering in the ways of God—a remembering of God in his mysterious ways that do not conform to my limited understanding of them, a remembering of God in ways that do not conform to my human way of thinking that says “God ought to do this or that.” Too often I wait on God by remembering him in ways that define what I want him to do or be. But here I am being asked to wait on God by remembering him in his own ways.

And as I wait for the God who is working for me, the text of Mark advises me to be aware and alert because I don’t know when he will come and meet me. Together these two verses challenge me to have an alert remembrance of God in his ways. This is not just a once-in-awhile memory. It is a memory that remains at the front of all else. In this way, then, I will not be napping when God briefly comes to meet me in my work.

My uncertain hope is that he will meet me. When? Unknown. How? Unknown. My part in this partnership is to wait and while waiting, to do right and to remember that God’s ways are usually not the way that I would do things.