Progressive Experience

UV 2768/10000 Progressive Experience
It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.
Lamentations 3 v 26

We should hope in the Lord, in Jesus, His word and His promises. We should hope and then wait. While we wait, our hope or confidence that the Lord is true to His word should be steadfast and not flag or waver. The Lord is preparing His salvation for us while we wait quietly. We ought to wait quietly, without any hint of murmur or complaint or doubt. We ought to wait quietly as a child trusts in her mother. We ought to wait quietly but not idly. We need to fill our waiting not with wondering whether the Lord will hear our prayers and act but with praise and thanksgiving at past answers we have received, the great deliverance, healing and blessings He has given us in the past. We should fill the waiting times with declaring the goodness, faithfulness and grace of the Lord. We fill the waiting time with labour, with diligence, with a constant drive for excellence.

If Adam and Eve had waited quietly for the Lord to appear, they could have asked Him how they could gain knowledge without breaking His command. There is no mastery without the Master, no creativity without the Creator. The Lord would not have kept man ignorant but opened a godly way of being knowledgable and wise, of enjoying power with responsibility but they were in a hurry to fall prey to deceit. Keeping faith with the Lord implies that we need to be patient. Patience is the soil in which the promises of the Lord grows. It might take a season or several seasons or even a whole generation or lifetime. Salvation is not an event but a progressive experience of the love, mercy, grace, power and faithfulness of the Lord.
Christ in us is like a mustard seed that is so tiny that it is initially not visible or felt. But over time and obedience and seeking the word and will of the Lord, the seed grows into a mighty tree. The man who places his trust in the Lord is not ephemeral like the grass that withers. His greatness is not like the glory of the flower that fades. He is like the patient farmer who waits many days and seasons to see the crop, the planting of his hands. He is like the athlete who invests in years of training to manifest his best effort in a few moments of running. He is like the soldier who fights all his lifetime to enjoy the spoils of victory or of salvation at the end of a life of faith and toil.

Prateep V Philip