Hiddenness: Despair to Hope

When we’re awakened in the dead of night by a noise, we jolt out of bed then grope our way in the darkness toward the light switch, banging our shins on the bed frame. We panic when we see a man crouching in the corner – only to realize it’s a chair draped with a sweater. It’s hard to see in the dark. 

So it’s no wonder that when life extends to us a long season of waiting, we struggle to find our way – because it’s like moving in the dark. Our thoughts swirl with fear-inducing ideas of being trapped forever in this state of not-seeing. Our hearts get tricked into believing that if we try harder, we can get ourselves out of this shadowy desert. Our spirits lose hope because the darkness of not-knowing just seems endless. 

We despair.

Until Jesus returns, waiting is inescapable.¹ I know I have felt the truth of this on many levels over the last four years, even more acutely the last several months. Just this week I picked up my ‘move journal’ – a place where I write all my thoughts, feelings, and experiences with God in the context of this season of transition, of trying to sell a house and move to a new city. I turned to the first entry of this journal from May of this year to read these pre-move thoughts:

“Lord, it’s hard not to think You have been preparing me for a move – all the ‘Georgias’ that pop up around me, the conversations that eerily turn toward ‘Atlanta,’ meeting the woman who holds the Atlanta position Larry has interviewed for, and the prophetic words from acquaintances that have come out of the blue. It all feels like preparation. So, whether you’re getting me ready for a move or just aligning my heart with yours, I’m IN. I’m gonna trust You. All. The. Way.”

Then, in the very next entry – still over six months ago – I said this, “I can’t help but think this move is going to happen. But I’m grateful that You’ve been helping me to hold the reins loosely and to trust in the pace You are running…” 

We didn’t know that Larry got the promotion in Atlanta until July. Never in a million years would I have believed back in May that if we were to move, God would still have us in Texas at the end of the year. We have been living in the land of waiting. It has been a season of learning to go at God’s pace. But even then, we’ve had days and weeks where our hope has run very thin, and we’ve come near the edge of the cliff called despair. 

Waiting can feel like groping in the dark of night. 
The longer the waiting, the darker life seems. The darker we feel.

But God.

Throughout my ‘move journal,’ I have written down every moment of revelation, every word God has spoken over us, every hint that God is in control. By writing down what my friend would call “mile markers of grace,” monuments that testify to God’s faithfulness and sovereignty have been established. And these Spirit-downloaded truths have sustained our faith and built our hope even as we wait.

I may not like bumping around in the dark, unaware of what God’s good plans and purposes are, but He has given us everything we need to keep trusting Him when all the waiting dares us to despair that God does not see us. When the hiddenness of God’s hand tempts us to think He is far from us – or we’re too far from Him – hope in Christ sustains us. 

The Weary World Waits

Weary. That’s how I feel when the waiting seems too long, too hard. But as I prepared for this Advent series, I was reminded again of how long the world had been waiting for a Savior. In the years leading up to the birth of Christ, the Roman Empire ruled with a mighty fist in order to keep the ‘peace of Rome’ – but really their brand of peace played out as oppression. Heavy taxes crippled communities. Enslavement separated families. Poverty became the norm. The weary world waited.

Before the Romans it was the Seleucids, the Ottomans, the Persians…The world had been waiting a long time for someone to break it free from the anguish of authoritarian rule. The Jews, in particular, waited with great expectancy for their deliverer, Messiah. 

The Jews have a long history of waiting – four hundred years for deliverance from Egyptian slavery, forty years to enter the Promised Land, seventy years until a remnant in exile could return to Jerusalem, four hundred more years of silence while they waited for a word from God. As we read their stories, we observe the people of God struggling in the darkness, searching for their God who seemed hidden from their sight.

Yet every time, God showed up. He met them in their weariness and became their hope. And that very truth is our hope as we wait.

Is Nazareth Too Far?

As weeks of waiting extend into seasons and years, we wrestle with the feeling of being unseen, unheard. We wonder if the God of the Universe cares to notice us – as small and insignificant as we might feel. Our smallness in the shadow of God’s vastness can lead us down hopeless thought-paths. 

In his song, “Nazareth,” Jon Guerra paints such a picture with his lyrics:

I’ve tried to pray, but it’s been hard
Found some words, but I lost my heart
Can you hear me from where You are?
Or is Nazareth just way too far?

When we go a long while without hearing from God, our hearts, like the tiny, unnoticed town of first century Nazareth, can seem far from God’s sight. Our prayers, which seemingly bounce off the sky into nothingness, can feel unhearable. Like David, we can wonder and wail:

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?

Psalm 13:1-2

If we stop there, with all the wondering and wailing, all the doubting and despairing, we lose hope. But, like David, our faith in God pushes us onward. Our hope in Christ tells us not to give up – because the truth is God never gives up on us. So we pick up David’s faith:

But I trust in your unfailing love;
    my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing the Lord’s praise,
    for he has been good to me.

Psalm 13:5-6

When God’s hiddenness feels palpable and we are tempted to believe we’re too obscure to be seen, too lost to be found, we grab hold of truth and seek God:

The light still bends when we say yes
The light still bends, the light still bends.
Light my heart so I won’t say less
Light my heart, light my heart  

Jon Guerra’s chorus in “Nazareth”

We invite the light of God’s life and love into our hearts so that hope can remind us that God is always at work, even when we feel hidden from His view. Our prayer might simply be, “Light my heart.” We can also stop focusing on what we haven’t seen or heard or received and, instead, shift our eyes onto God-With-Us and receive the hope that comes with His presence.

We remember the Good that came from Nazareth, anchoring ourselves in the fact that nothing and no one is too far from God.

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight.

Hebrews 4:13a

Steadily and Suddenly

One time when God spoke over me in this in-between season, it came as two simple words: hold steady. And just to make sure I got that seed of a word, hold steady, planted deeply in my heart, God made sure I ran across a note I had made months before this move was even a thought. It was a concept I learned from our leaders at The Devoted Collective, called “Steadily and Suddenly.” Em Tyler and Aimee Walker explained that we are meant to keep moving forward steadily each day, doing our part faithfully, choosing to do each next right thing, and believing God is doing His part in the hidden spaces.²

Steadily, we do what we can while trusting that God is working. Until suddenly, He breaks-in with a mighty move of His power and Spirit. 

On the chance I still wasn’t getting this concept, God handed me a third word when a friend encouraged me with this wisdom, “We are to do all we can physically and spiritually while leaving the outcomes to God.” 

Hold steady.
Steadily and suddenly.
Do what we can and leave the rest to God.

These words have had a sustaining power in my life that I cannot fully explain. Maybe it’s the power of knowing that we are called to keep doing something – not just sit in the pit of despair, moping and whining and wasting the time we’re given. Do our part. Do the next right thing. Do all we can physically and spiritually without trying to control the outcomes.

For me this has looked like staying steady in reading God’s Word and in my writing. Engaging with people who remain nearby. And praying with greater fervency and firepower than I have in a long while. 

When all of that doesn’t feel like enough, I confess it to God and ask for His leadership. His light. His love. For more of Him. I pick up the Bible and read stories of people like Zechariah and Elizabeth who remained steady in their faith and righteous practices for decades despite their grief-filled waiting – until suddenly an angel appears, announcing a baby for the barren mother (Luke 1:6-17). I also grab my phone and ask other people how I can be praying for them – because nothing helps us feel better about what God is doing than sharing with other believers, praying together, and celebrating the miracles happening around us. 

If we’ll remain steady in our faithfulness, in our abiding, in our connection with other believers, we will be able to keep moving forward as we wait on God’s will and way and timing. In our steadiness, we can keep watch with holy expectancy – because God will suddenly move BIG!

Tim Keller said it this way, “[God] may seem to be working very slowly or even to be forgetting his promises, but when his promises come true (and they will come true), they always burst the banks of what you imagined. This is one of the main themes of the nativity story, and indeed the Bible.”³ 

Friends, we’re in a special season that is set apart by its very anticipation of Christ’s coming. It is a season of preparation and of waiting. But this waiting is not empty or void of Christ’s presence. He is always near. His Spirit dwells in us. So, as we move closer and closer to Christmas – a day of ‘suddenly’ if there ever was one – let’s keep hope as our anchor (Hebrews 6:19). As our guide. As our goal in the distance so that we can remain steady, never losing sight of the One who came to live as us and with us and for us (John 1:14, 3:16). So we can see for ourselves all that God wants to reveal to us even as we wait. 

May Christ be the hope that overpowers your deepest despair.

Lord Jesus, I receive your deliverance from my controlling nature and tendencies, which is a core dimension of my broken, sinful nature. I receive your deliverance into the freedom of trusting completely in You. I receive your deliverance from worry and into a trust-filled waiting. I receive your deliverance from making things happen and into letting your will unfold in your way and in your timing. In your name and power and authority I pray, amen.
(quoted from JD Walt’s prayer, 11/16/24 Wake Up Call)

Resources: I love sharing with you the books, podcasts, articles, and anything else that has inspired, encouraged, or taught me. These are humble offerings with no expectations.

• 1 – from Paul Tripp’s article, “Tired of Waiting”
• 2 – Each month Em and Aimee do a “Coffee and Chat” session with the members of The Devoted Collective (via a digital call), and they brought the “Steadily and Suddenly” idea to us in December of 2023. It was provocative then. It seems providential now. 😉 If you’re interested in becoming a member of Devoted, email me or use this link. 
• 3 – Tim Keller in his book, Hidden Christmas^ p.35
• The second song on our Hiddenness Advent playlist, “Glory in the Darkest Place,” captures some of the heaviness of waiting in dark seasons — when we feel as though the ‘night’ is long and hope is faint, when the darkness feels so deep and our weary spirits cannot see. And what do our spirits not see? God’s glory in the darkest place! It’s paradoxical to think that in our long stints of waiting we’re meant to praise God — yet that’s the actual prescription for our despair. Glory, glory, glory — God is our hope!
• The Abiding Life newsletter for December finally hit inboxes a couple of days ago. If you’d like to read this edition that’s about fighting darkness with our prayers, email me. You can subscribe for future issues here.

Rhythms: As my newsletter’s title infers, we seek to develop an abiding life in this space — a place where we can get informed but also be transformed as we learn to abide in God’s presence throughout our days because developing rhythms is one way to aid us in quest to become more like Christ.

• Much like praising God in our darkest valleys feels backwards, so does the practice of reflection in a season that is already packed to the hilt. Yet, it’s exactly what we need. I’m learning to pause when an emotion overtakes me and to reflect on why. Or to pause when I sense my body or spirit resisting something I read or hear and to reflect on why. Because if I don’t, I spiral. I close myself off to what God is trying to say or do in me. Reflecting on our body’s reactions is one way to say yes to God, His presence, His will, His way. It’s in the reflecting that we hear Him better. And recognize He is indeed, God With Us.
  
  So, this week let’s become acutely aware of our emotional and bodily reactions/responses and give ourselves permission and space to stop. To ask God to reveal what He’s showing us. To reflect on all the reasons and lessons — because this is one way we keep moving steadily forward in faith.
• And while it’s not a spiritual practice or rhythm, I invite you to share this site. This is such an important topic that I want as many people as possible to join us here. Together we’ll find support and encouragement and the simple truth that we are not alone in our struggles.

Featured Photo by Ray Hennessy on Unsplash.
^denotes an affiliate link, with which this ministry may earn a bit