What do you think of when you think of “eager expectation”? Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada. Welcome to Joni and Friends. That’s a good question. The psalmist tried to express “eager expectation” with a simple word picture. He says in Psalm 130, “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord – now get this -- more than watchmen wait for the morning.” Now, right there, that is a picture of eager expectation.
Because what he’s showing us here – the psalmist is – is a picture of a watchman on the wall of Jerusalem. Now just imagine it. It’s a picture of a lonely, middle-aged sentry on night duty, pacing back and forth on top of the wall, as the long hours drag on; no one to talk to, nothing stirring; no sound but a chilly wind. With no real way of marking the passage of time, those dark hours seem endless.
After the sentry has passed around that wall what seems to be a hundred times, he glances toward the east—he’s looking for some kind of light, some kind of hint of dawn coming. Every trip around the walls he continues to look toward the east. Could the stars be fading just a bit on the horizon? Is that I see just the slightest hint of gray? Won’t morning ever come?
Boy, I can’t tell you how many sleepless nights I have laid awake and thought the same thing – won’t morning ever come. All those times I have looked toward the bedroom window to see if the dawn has brightened on the other side of the drapes. What have you waited for with eager expectation? A letter from a sweetheart in a distant city? Maybe an “all clear” result from a CT scan looking for recurrent cancer? Maybe you eagerly expect an end to a long military tour of duty in a faraway place and a plane ticket home?
A friend of mine remembers being at his grandparents’ home out in the country – it was always fun for a day or two, but after the third day, little Larry would camp himself in his grandfather’s rocking chair by the big picture window in the living room… and he would just rocking back and forth and staring at the gravel road out in front of the house. Larry was eagerly expecting, he was on tiptoes waiting for that familiar 1954 blue-and-white Ford station wagon to come rolling up the country road. He was waiting in eager expectation for his daddy.
The Bible says we too should wait “on tiptoes” for daddy, for the day when Jesus returns for His own, calling us to heaven. We mustn’t wait in a dull sort of way with an indifferent attitude. No, we must wait like the watchman, eagerly expecting. We must rejoice in our hope—in spite of our suffering. It’s that joy that makes you eagerly expect—like a big dog when he strains at his leash. Anticipation means stretching your neck… yearning and fervently hoping.
Friend, that’s the way I am looking for my Abba Daddy Father from heaven. Others may have their focus on earthly things, but I'm with the Philippians. I’m with the Apostle Paul where it says, “… our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Did you get that? To eagerly await the Savior is to be a watchman on the tower looking toward the east for the horizon to brighten. I’ve written a little booklet about that called “When Heaven Arrives” that I think you’ll really enjoy – it’s all about how to cultivate that eager expectation of Christ’s return. So visit me today would you at joniandfriendsradio.org because I want you to say with me that your soul waits for the Lord more than the watchmen wait for the morning… and be excited about the dawn that’s just beginning to break on the eastern horizon. Jesus is on His way back. So, let me hear from you today at joniandfriendsradio.org.
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