Waiting can be an experience of emptiness. Our hands are empty. Our desires unfulfilled. Our hearts feel empty as well. 

George MacDonald described it this way: 

 ’Tis hard for man to rouse his spirit up—
 It is the human creative agony,
 Though but to hold the heart an empty cup, 
 Or tighten on the team the rigid rein. 
 Many will rather lie among the slain
 Than creep through narrow ways the light to gain—
 Than wake the will, and be born bitterly.
 But he who would be born again indeed,
 Must wake his soul unnumbered times a day,
 And urge himself to life with holy greed;
 Now ope his bosom to the Wind’s free play;
 And now, with patience forceful, hard, lie still, 
 Submiss and ready to the making will,
 Athirst and empty, for God’s breath to fill.  (A Book of Strife in the form of the Diary of an Old Soul)

The only way we can wait is if we are holding fast to the hope that we will not be waiting forever. 

Waiting requires trusting. We will be able to wait with expectancy only if we believe that a great good is coming.

It’s an exercise of faith. It’s an opportunity for our desires not to be quelled but to rise, for our hope to become heavier, more substantial, anchored more solidly in the belief that a goodness beyond our wildest dreams will come to us when our Jesus arrives in glory. And He is coming. We are promised His ultimate return, when He will put every enemy under His feet. 

And even now Jesus is coming. He is present in the waiting. We do not wait alone. We do not wait in vain.

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