20 years & 1000 words

“The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him. Two years passed…”
Genesis 40:23-41:1

Two years. Joseph waited two years. At the start of these two yeas, he had already waited ten years. Where he was waiting was not exactly ideal. He was in prison. Twelve years he spent there. Twelve years locked up. Twelve years of going to bed each night probably dreaming of freedom. Although, I wonder when you stop dreaming? I wonder if there was a point when he thought it would never happen?

After a decade of being locked up, still dreaming or not, he sees a glimmer of hope – he is in favor of one that has the power to get him released from jail. He has a potential ticket to freedom.

But he waits some more. Two more years.

I’ve been told that the word “to wait” in some cultures can be translated into “hope.” When someone is waiting, he or she is pausing because they expect something to happen. I wait each morning for the coffee maker expecting to drink coffee. I wait for friends to return calls expecting to have a conversation. I wait for traffic lights expecting them to turn green so I can keep driving. I don’t wait for the sake of waiting.

I wonder, however, where my hope is while I wait. Was Joseph waiting to become the most powerful man in the whole country? Was he waiting for the powers that be to turn over practically all control to him, an ex-con? Or did he wait on the Lord to act and use him, not really knowing what would happen and being refined in the process?

I wonder what exactly for what I’m waiting? Do I hope and wait in the Lord, authentically and sincerely praying “not my will but yours be done,” completely surrendering to however it is he’s refining me? Or do I wait with a hope for my agenda to happen, for my will to be done in the way that I can only imagine it to be? How might perspective, hopes, waiting change with hope in God and not in ideal circumstances…because, like Joseph, it’s unknown for what God has in mind with the waiting.