For the disciples, if Friday was fear for their lives, great sorrow, and grief for their friend, then Saturday was wandering aimlessly and the loss of everything they had hoped in. Friday was the death of a loved one; Saturday marked the eternal “firsts” of living without their loved one. Friday is the doctor saying you have cancer; Saturday is chemo, radiation, and nausea for weeks, and wondering if they got it all. Friday is the pink slip in your inbox; Saturday is hundreds of resumes sent and thousands of email checks hoping for a response.
We all experience days like Friday, and we all experience seasons like Saturday. Saturdays are long waiting periods filled with uncertainty and doubt. God’s voice seems silent and his works seem absent. But hope is the strange bedfellow of uncertainty. Saturdays and hope are the Odd Couple. They are Felix and Oscar. We would never put them together, but somehow they work, or perhaps they do God’s work in us.
Ironically, Saturdays are the fertile ground of hope. Uncertainty provides the ideal growing conditions for hope, if nurtured. Paul wrote that, faith and love spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel (Colossians 1:5). That is, one whose hope is found in the gospel finds that its seeds eventually burst through the hard ground of Saturdays. The apostle also writes to Timothy, we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, (Titus 2:13) – a good reminder that all the waiting and uncertainty of Saturday will be ultimately met with great joy and the appearing of Jesus. Our hope is in Jesus, and Saturday doesn’t make the gospel void.
I don’t know what long, hard road you are on right now. Your calendar may seem filled with an eternity of consecutive Saturdays. But, continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel (Colossians 1:23). It’s only the hope found in Christ that can see us through. It might be Saturday, but Sunday is coming. It’s only a day a way after all!
Something to think about.
Britt
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