minutes tick away
turn into hours then days
and silently
within the forward push of time
blossoms become tiny bulbs
hidden baby mangoes
soak in sun and sap
swelling as the weeks slip by
even without rain
strips of clouds float northward
while we wait for dark ones
to splash respite
someday they will come someday
our Lord is healing his parched land
that burns and yearns
for rain and fruit
that time will come
even when we fail to see it coming
What are you hoping for as a new year pushes its way into place? I wrote “Within the Forward Push of Time” in a bleak “winter,” a “dry season” actually, when we still lived in Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa. We were used to brown Christmases there, because the rains would have already stopped and most trees would have lost their leaves. The harvest was over and we were now waiting eagerly for March when rains would begin again and the first mangoes would ripen, bringing what we had been longing for. It was always like a miracle: the trees would become richly ornamented with dark orange blossoms in starry fans, tiny green buds would appear and slowly grow into those longed-for mangoes before the rains arrived! The trees’ root systems were able to find water we could not see.
Here in southern Michigan, we might have wished for a “white Christmas” that didn’t come, but now we are getting snow! All we had to do was wait.
Waiting is often yearning, a deep desire for change, for an answer to prayer, for healing to come. With so much chaos and distress going on in our world, we know we cannot count on human leaders to resolve all the problems. Loved ones drift away from following the Lord, and our only hope is for the Lord to break through barriers and draw them back to himself. The job market dwindles and we wait for the right opening to come—how long will that take? Or it could be time to choose a new path forward; which direction is the right one? Maybe physical pain or debilitating disease is crunching hope for relief.
But if all is well and you have special plans for the new year, you still want the Father to hold you and guide you step by step.
Whatever your situation, wait on him. There may be tiny buds growing almost out of sight, fruit on its way. As time moves on ahead we will see what he has planned. We need to trust him like the psalmist did:
130:5 I rely on the Lord,
I rely on him with my whole being;
I wait for his assuring word.[1]
33:20 We wait for the Lord;
he is our deliverer and shield.
33:21 For our hearts rejoice in him,
for we trust in his holy name.
33:22 May we experience your faithfulness, O Lord,
for we wait for you.[2]
[1] The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible (Biblical Studies Press, 2005), Ps 130:5.
[2] Ibid., Ps 33:20–22.
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