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經文：「我們靠著聖靈，憑著信心，等候義的盼望。」（加5:5） 有時候，我們的處境似乎非常黑暗，黑暗到連盼望都生不出來。在盼望中等候已經很難，若是失了盼望又該如何等待？ 沒有一絲光線，卻仍不肯絕望；窗外盡是黑暗，卻仍等候星宿；心中雖有空虛，卻不許可污穢；這就是時空中最偉大的忍耐。一如約伯在患難中，亞伯拉罕在往摩利亞的路程，摩西在米甸的曠野，人子在客西馬尼的那種忍耐。 「恆心忍耐，如同看見那不能看見的王」（來11:27）；這種忍耐，是一種最難的忍耐；因為是等候盼望的忍耐。 --- 主阿，請賜給我祢的力量；祢客西馬尼的力量。是等候盼望的力量；使我在沒有星宿的黑夜，仍然可以守望窗外；在失去所有快樂的時候，仍然可以剛強站住。--馬得勝 George Mahtheson 新譯｜荒漠甘泉讀書會
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Scripture: "For we through the Spirit by faith wait for the hope of righteousness" (Gal. 5:5, RV). There are times when things look very dark to me--so dark that I have to wait even for hope. It is bad enough to wait in hope. A long-deferred fulfillment carries its own pain, but to wait for hope, to see no glimmer of a prospect and yet refuse to despair; to have nothing but night before the casement and yet to keep the casement open for possible stars; to have a vacant place in my heart and yet to allow that place to be filled by no inferior presence--that is the grandest patience in the universe. It is Job in the tempest; it is Abraham on the road to Moriah; it is Moses in the desert of Midian; it is the Son of man in the Garden of Gethsemane. There is no patience so hard as that which endures, "as seeing him who is invisible"; it is the waiting for hope. Thou hast made waiting beautiful; Thou has made patience divine. Thou hast taught us that the Father's will may be received just because it is His will. Thou hast revealed to us that a soul may see nothing but sorrow in the cup and yet may refuse to let it go, convinced that the eye of the Father sees further than its own. Give me this Divine power of Thine, the power of Gethsemane. Give me the power to wait for hope itself, to look out from the casement where there are no stars. Give me the power, when the very joy that was set before me is gone, to stand unconquered amid the night, and say, "To the eye of my Father it is perhaps shining still." I shall reach the climax of strength when I have learned to wait for hope. --George Matheson Strive to be one of those--so few--who walk the earth with ever-present consciousness--all mornings, middays, star-times--that the unknown which men call Heaven is "close behind the visible scene of things." ｜ Mrs. Charles Cowman
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