Hope in the Waiting Period

The “Minneapolis Miracle”

If you’re not a Minnesota Vikings fan then I’m not sure if this would be relevant to you but a recent playoffs game just made history. This surprising game ended with a Vikings win where Stefon Diggs crossed the goal line against all odds in the final play of the fourth quarter to complete what’s been called the "Minneapolis Miracle.” The fans went wild when this unexpected win hit and the whole state was in celebration. What makes these moments so exciting and unexpected are the events leading up to the breakthrough. It seemed as if everyone watching the game in it’s entirety wouldn’t have expected this type of ending. It was the final play of the fourth quarter with only seconds left on the clock when all the sudden the game completely changed and ended with a miracle win.

Hope When Things Don’t Look Good

Hope is the expectation of something good going to happen. Even though I’m not a die hard football fan I think that this specific game is a good parallel to life's circumstances. It would have been really easy to be hopeful for a win when the game is looking good. It’s the same way in life in the sense that it’s really easy to be hopeful when things are looking up for us, there’s premonition of breakthrough coming or our situation is lining up in a way that favors our result. However It takes divine anointing to have hope when there seems to be nothing good happening and circumstances seem dire.

Hope in the Waiting Period

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”

Proverbs 13:12

I use to read this verse and think that it meant when I hope for something and it doesn’t happen it results in my heart (inner-man, mind, emotions) being sick. However, I realize now that’s not what this verse means. This verse is actually saying is that your heart becomes sick when you have no hope— meaning it’s not the outcome or answer being deferred, it’s the actual hope being deferred.

We can’t be people that rest our hope on an answer coming within our desired waiting period. God is always moving in His sovereignty and in His timing. When we lose hope because we our situation isn’t lining up in a certain way, our hope isn’t in God it’s in our projections and predictions. When our heart feels sick in the waiting period it’s not because our outcome hasn’t happened yet, it’s because our hope was in our prediction and not in God’s sovereignty. It’s easy to look at the position of the game and how it’s gone so far and let that determine the hope we have for the result. When in fact we have to remember that God can change the outcome in a second regardless of how the game has played out for us thus far. We need to be people of hope in the waiting period as much as being people of hope during the celebration period. As Christians we need hope to be able to partner with faith propelled by hope. I don’t think we can be people of divine faith if it’s not propelled by divine hope. We need to constantly have the expectation that God can and will break through a situation even when it doesn’t look like it.

Below is a video on this message *including the “Minneapolis Miracle” play (Enjoy!)

Above Picture Found Here: http://worldnewsinsider.org/2018/01/14/inside-the-play-that-saved-the-minnesota-vikings-season/