Hope Unseen

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?

-Romans 8:24

 

            Were I to dare to still my flailing heart, what would I find beneath its quiet beats? Were I to peel back the sinews of my soul, would I see a storehouse of expectancy? Were You to whisper into my deepest dreams, would I wake to recognize reality?

            I am a motor always churning, a willow in a state of constant weeping. I train my eyes to trace the ground because I fear the soaring lights in space may blind me. I have a heart encased in comfort but no motive to feel it burn.

            Dare I be foolish enough to fix my eyes on the unseen? To believe a promise that provokes me in an explosion of expectancy? What if, for once, I choose to chase the wind that wraps Your wonder around my veins?

            You are the constant sun in my winter night, the dream that’s always developing. In my most wildest of whims, there waits a life that lavishes all Your joy, Your purpose, and Your gifts upon my belief. Invisible, indescribable, it hovers just above my hands, full and fertile and the perfect fit for my palm. If I dare to hope in the beauty that waits to burst before me, how much power in love could lift my eyes high into the heavens?

            I am a timid soul, afraid to fly. But You beckon me to grasp what I have been grappling with and glow in the embers of excitement. Your throne is where my thoughts lay, and I hold the fabric of my heart’s unseen belief at Your feet, to take and spin Your sweetness into my strength, so I may boldly wait for what You send.

Prayer:

Lord, I grab at what I see and balk at what I cannot. I am afraid, yet am fervent in my faith. I want to believe You when You tell me to trust and see Your strength revealed, but my heart constricts and allows doubt to trickle in. Help me to see You in the invisible, to wish for what is impossible and act upon my faith as if I have always been so sure of where I’m going. Guide me, lift me and search my heart to be sewn like Yours. Amen.