Waking up each morning. Wondering why.
Why wake up? What’s the point? Why not just pull the covers over again? In fact, why bother carrying on at all?
In as much as I love my family and am grateful to God for them, primarily living for them as a purpose to keep going is relatively tenuous. My children will grow up and grow out. There’s no guarantee of the other family connections. I am also relatively confident that God will keep them going whether I’m here or not. So being awake, alive and going for my family isn’t the primary motivating factor.
If it’s not the family then what? Making a name for myself? Accumulating accolades and money? Achieving personal goals that I conceive as some sort of carrot to keep me going? Nope.
Confident expectation. That’s what it is. A confident expectation.
That confident expectation is faith in Jesus. A faith that gives hope for the future and gives something concrete to work on in the present. Faith in one who talks about and displays life better than I’ve ever dreamed. Faith in one who took my sorrows, my pains, my sins, my failings and foibles and gave me abundant life. Faith in one who brings me to be a part of a family – His family – of redeemed people keen to grow in the grace and knowledge of Him and keen to share His life and the good news of His rule that can offer something more than what is offered by the world around us.
That confident expectation is a growth to be more like Him and with that an ability to endure mornings waking up and wondering why. That confident expectation is the Spirit of how to endure the backlash and the setbacks from others near and far as well as the feeling within.
That confident expectation in Jesus is about brighter days ahead as I know Him more and see Him expressed in the lives of others and as relationships deepen and strengthen. Brighter days ahead in anticipation of His rule on the earth.
There is a willingness to go on because the prize is far greater than anything else and that is a tremendous motivation. That confident expectation is known as hope in the writings of those in the New Testament. That confident expectation in Jesus is why I am willing to go forward.
(Photo by Vek Labs on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 