“For the vision is yet for the appointed time; It pants toward its end, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; For it will certainly come; it will not delay.”
Habakkuk 2:3, LSB
In times of tribulation and difficulty, it is difficult to wait. At the time of Habakkuk and still today, patience is not something that we tend to practice well. Life seems to want to hurry by until it doesn’t. It seems in the times of greatest difficulty, it just lingers. Yet, this is what God is warning us about. In the tribulations of life, as we linger and suffer awaiting the return of Christ, we are called to hold fast to the promises we have received. We are also reminded that we can not and should not desire to expedite Christ in His return. The time is already set, but it is not for us to know, as our Lord Jesus Christ reminded us when He was walking upon the earth. We are called to be satisfied not in our own mindset of how we think it should be but in knowing that Christ will return; more specifically, Christ will return for His own. We will be reunited with Him, whether it be when He comes to restore all creation at the Apocalypse or as He meets us as we lay our heads down in this lifetime. We must neither be impatient nor complacent but prepared and walk every day with the certain hope that Christ will come. In this, we are called to walk in hope.
Let us pray. I thank you, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, your dear Son, that you have kept me this night from all harm and danger, and I ask you to protect me this day also from sin and every evil, that in all I do today, I may please you. For into your hands, I commend myself, my body and soul, and all that is mine. Let your holy angel watch over me, that the wicked foe have no power over me. Amen.