Waiting and Hoping When You Just Can't...
a story of standing with the YMCA in the Holy Land for a few days: trying to trust God with impossible situations
We ascended the many flights of stairs to the tip-top of the Jerusalem International YMCA tower to pray in the tiny chapel there. Glenn and Debbie had just departed for the airport near Tel Aviv, the remaining three of us wouldn’t depart for another twelve hours.
Here we were, five days later, tickets secured, grateful for the opportunity to finally fly home. We came to visit the East Jerusalem YMCA but were prevented from seeing them because of the irruption of war; instead, we stayed at the Jerusalem International YMCA (JIY).
Nothing had gone according to plan since we arrived in the Holy Land on October 7th. Disappointments compounded into incredulity and grief. What was happening here? No one really knew? But what we could see on the news was heart-wrenching and soul-crushing.
We did a lot of praying during our time in Jerusalem; there's a story that accompanies most of these moments. I want to share briefly about the prayer at the top of the tower.
Fadi (the JIY CEO) led me, Sabrina, and Juwan up to the chapel, we were joined by two Christian women from Florida who had just arrived at the JIY and were also waiting and hoping to get home ASAP. We made a prayer circle with our new friends; to prepare for that moment we looked up and saw this inscription:
“THEY THAT WAIT ON JEHOVAH SHALL RENEW THEIR STRENGTH”
Whoa. We were all profoundly struck by this promise from the prophet Isaiah to God’s people facing hard times, facing impossible situations.
While each of us really wanted to get back home safely to our family and friends, each of us acknowledged that in some way we were changed by being here in the Holy Land during the outbreak of war, that a part of our tired heart was now here with the Palestinian Christians suffering, that we felt a tender bond of solidarity with the YMCA leaders here living out the mission amidst devastating violence.
For me, I struggled with what to even pray. “Dear God, help us to get home safely and please stop the war in Gaza.” How to pray that without your soul being broken in two? “Dear God, please be with us as we go home, and please be with those who no longer have a home.” Ack! It hurts to even acknowledge this reality. “Dear God, thank you for protecting us, and please protect those who are still alive in Southern Israel and Gaza.” My spirit feels emptied even trying to pray this…it all feels so impossible….
To prepare us for a moment to pray, we meditated on the context of the prophet Isaiah and the children of Israel to whom he wrote this poetic sermon - what kind of devastation and darkness was on the land then, what kind of horrors and fears had gripped their hearts, what kind of despair and weariness had sapped their will to go on? It might have been worse for the remaining tribes of Jacob then…
Thus: who would have believed Isaiah, who would have listened, who would have even given the promises of God any credibility?
Yet: in the impossible situation that God’s people found themselves in, Isaiah has the moxie to invite them to trust when they just can’t. Here’s how he puts the final stanzas:
Why do you say, O Jacob,
And speak, O Israel:
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
And my just claim is passed over by my God”?
Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, the Lord,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the weak,
And to those who have no might He increases strength.
Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall,
But those who hope and wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.
We stood together in that little chapel feeling deeply in our souls a different kind of waiting - one from having been immersed in “the situation” that seemed impossible to resolve justly and peacefully. We dared to hope but felt like there was little to base that hope on when we looked at the violence and destruction happening near us.
The looking up through the skylight, the looking up to the Lord as we read the promise had an illuminating and inspiring effect on us: we will have to keep trusting in the Lord, only then will we have the strength to endure and stay faithful to Christ in these impossible situations.
What else is there? Despair? Hate? Apathy? Callousness?
Or: to feel our spirits lifted like eagles soaring high above the clouds trusting that God continues to renew the strength of those who hope and wait on him in the darkest of days.
It’s always been like that for God’s people. It hurts that this is how our world is, and someday all will be made right, all that is broken will be mended, all that is wounded will be healed through Christ Jesus, born in the little town of Bethlehem….
Until then, when we are feeling weak and beyond weary, let us see and hear the invitation to keep healing and serving as we are hoping and waiting on the Lord, to keep looking up to the Light.
What are the impossible situations you find yourself in these days?