Thursday's Verse of the Day » Romans 8:25

As we begin this next season of our publishing journey and are short on content, we will be sharing Verse of the Day devotions until we have enough article submissions to fill our editorial calendar. We hope you enjoy them! ~ Janel the CWP Editor-in-Chief

“...hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”

— Romans 8:24-25 NIV

You know what you need. You asked for it in prayer. You trust God to provide.

{insert dramatic and faithful pause}

But the waiting? Waiting is hard when you don't know what you're waiting for. Patience or not, it can unravel you to the core of your bones.

Will it be a change? An answer? Healing? A way out? A sense of peace? Or something completely unexpected?

Waiting can make us feel as though our life stopped while everyone else keeps moving. But hope isn't necessarily the opposite of waiting. Sometimes hope is what makes waiting survivable.

You don't have to pretend you enjoy the seasons of waiting. (Because there's never, ever, just one.) The anticipation and anxiety build because you never know when it will end. If we're honest with God and ourselves, the waiting is awful.

For today, it may be enough to say I don't have what I'm hoping for—but I haven't stopped hoping. Patience doesn't mean piously waiting with hands folded in prayer. It's the ability to tolerate delays and setbacks while still believing an answer is on its way.

When waiting becomes unbearable, it's good to know we can rattle the Gates of Heaven and remind God we believe His promises... and we're still hoping for a miracle. That resets our focus and allows us to continue patiently waiting.

Ὧ