「我們靠著那靈，本於信，熱切等待所盼望的義。」－加拉太書5:5
在盼望中等候已經夠令人痛苦了，更何況是等候盼望呢？
遲遲未能償願的等候已令人身心俱疲了，然而若連「盼望」本身都得苦苦等候呢？
- 儘管前頭不見一線希望，又肯咬牙苦撐；
- 窗前明明黝黑已罩上大地，仍留一扇窗守候星光閃爍；
- 明明心中有了空缺，仍拒絕任何劣值品的填補...
這就是約伯在患難中、亞伯拉罕在往摩利亞的路上、摩西在米甸的曠野，以及人子在客西馬尼的那種忍耐。
「堅定不移，如同看見那不能看見的主」（希伯來書11:27）－這就是等候盼望的忍耐。
主啊！你已使等候變為美麗，忍耐變為神聖。
你已教導我們要接受父的旨意，只因為那是出於父的。你已向我們啟示，儘管眼前是十架苦杯，我們也得緊持不放；因為我們相信，父的眼光看得比我們更遠。
主啊，求你加給我力量，賜我你在客西馬尼的力量，賜我等候盼望的力量。
使我能在荒夜裡守著一扇盼望的窗，使我有力量在失去歡樂之時堅定站住，使我能在黑森森的夜裡百折不撓的說：「在父的眼中，光線從來未曾消失。」
當我學會了如何等候盼望，我就必能達到力量的極致。－馬特孫
"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
