5. 寧靜時分：等候盼望 (Waiting For Hope)

寧靜時分：等候盼望 (Waiting For Hope)
作者：喬治馬得勝 (George Matheson, 1842-1906)
朗讀者：楚雲牧師

我們靠著聖靈，憑著信心，等候所盼望的義。(加拉5:5)

影音連結

主啊
有時候　光景非常黑暗
黑暗的
連盼望都要斷絕了
在盼望中等候已經夠難了
何況等候盼望呢

然而
一線光明也沒有
卻仍然不肯絕望
窗前盡是黑暗
卻仍然開著窗
等候星辰

心中有了空處
卻不許裝置汙穢

主啊
這就是宇宙中最偉大的忍耐
這就是約伯在患難中
亞伯拉罕在往亞摩利山上去的路上
摩西在米甸的曠野
人子在客西馬尼園的　那種忍耐

主
經上說
恆心忍耐
如同看見那不能看見的主

這樣的忍耐
比任何忍耐都難
這就是等候盼望

主啊
給我祢的力量
祢客西馬尼的力量
給我等候盼望的力量
叫我在沒有星辰的黑夜
仍有力量守望窗外
在最大的歡樂失去的時候
仍有力量站住

禱告　奉主耶穌基督的聖名　阿門

Devotional: Waiting For Hope

Author: George Matheson (1842-1906)

For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. (Galatians 5:5)

    There are times when things look very dark to me-so dark that I have to wait even for hope. It is bad enough to wait in hope. A long-deferred fulfillment carries its own pain, but to wait for hope, to see no glimmer of a prospect and yet refuse to despair; to have nothing but night before the casement and yet to keep the casement open for possible stars; to have a vacant place in my heart and yet to allow that place to be filled by no inferior presence-that is the grandest patience in the universe. It is Job in the tempest; it is Abraham on the road to Moriah; it is Moses in the desert of Midian; it is the Son of man in the Garden of Gethsemane.

    There is no patience so hard as that which endures, "as seeing him who is invisible"; it is the waiting for hope.

    Thou hast made waiting beautiful; Thou has made patience divine. Thou hast taught us that the Father‵s will may be received just because it is His will. Thou hast revealed to us that a soul may see nothing but sorrow in the cup and yet may refuse to let it go, convinced that the eye of the Father sees further than its own.

    Give me this Divine power of Thine, the power of Gethsemane. Give me the power to wait for hope itself, to look out from the casement where there are no stars. Give me the power, when the very joy that was set before me is gone, to stand unconquered amid the night, and say, "To the eye of my Father it is perhaps shining still." I shall reach the climax of strength when I have learned to wait for hope.