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「我們靠著聖靈，憑著信心，等候義的盼望。」（聖經加拉太書五章 5 節，英文聖經直譯）
有時候，光景似乎非常黑暗 ── 黑暗到連盼望都需要等候。在盼望中等候已經夠難了，何況等候盼望呢？一線光明也沒有，卻仍不肯絕望；窗前盡是黑暗，卻仍開著窗等候星宿；心中有了空處，卻不允許裝進污穢 ── 這就是宇宙中最大的忍耐。這就是約伯在患難中、亞伯拉罕在往摩利亞去的路上、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主」（聖經希伯來書十一章 27節） ── 這樣的忍耐，比任何樣的忍耐都難；這就是等候盼望。
主啊，給我你的力量 ── 你客西馬尼的力量。給我等候盼望的力量 ── 叫我在沒有星宿的黑夜，仍有力量守望窗外；在最大的歡樂 失去了的時候，仍有力量站住。── 馬得勝（George Matcheson）
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"For we through the Spirit by faith wait for the hope of righteousness." (Gal. 5:5, R. V.)
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."
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