During this difficult season, I have been encouraged by a song that I recently heard on the radio called “Haven’t Seen It Yet” by Danny Gokey, a former American Idol contestant.
Here are the lyrics:
Have you been praying and you still have no answers?
Have you been pouring out your heart for so many years?
Have you been hoping that things would have changed by now?
Have you cried all the faith you have through so many tears?
Don’t forget the things that He has done before
And remember He can do it all once more
It’s like the brightest sunrise
Waiting on the other side of the darkest night
Don’t ever lose hope, hold on and believe
Maybe you just haven’t seen it, just haven’t seen it yet
You’re closer than you think you are
Only moments from the break of dawn
All His promises are just up ahead
Maybe you just haven’t seen it, just haven’t seen it yet
Maybe you just haven’t seen it, just haven’t seen it yet
Maybe you just haven’t seen it
He had the solution before you had the problem
He sees the best in you when you feel at your worst
So in the questioning don’t ever doubt His love for you
‘Cause it’s only in His love that you’ll find a breakthrough, oh
It’s like the brightest sunrise
Waiting on the other side of the darkest night
Don’t ever lose hope, hold on and believe
Maybe you just haven’t seen it, just haven’t seen it yet
You’re closer than you think you are
Only moments from the break of dawn
All His promises are just up ahead
Maybe you just haven’t seen it, just haven’t seen it yet
Maybe you just haven’t seen it, just haven’t seen it yet
Maybe you just haven’t seen it
He is moving with a love so deep
Hallelujah for the victory
Good things are coming even when we can’t see
We can’t see it yet, but we believe that
He is moving with a love so deep
Hallelujah for the victory
Good things are coming even when we can’t see
We can’t see it yet, but we believe that
It’s like the brightest sunrise
Waiting on the other side of the darkest night
Don’t ever lose hope, hold on and believe (Don’t ever lose hope)
Maybe you just haven’t seen it, just haven’t seen it yet
(Just haven’t seen it yet)
You’re closer than you think you are (Think you are)
Only moments from the break of dawn
All His promises are just up ahead
Maybe you just haven’t seen it, just haven’t seen it yet
Maybe you just haven’t seen it, just haven’t seen it yet
(You gotta hold on, hold on)
Maybe you just haven’t seen it, just haven’t seen it yet (Hold on)
Maybe you just haven’t seen it, just haven’t seen it yet
(Just haven’t seen it yet)
I pretty much just loop this song and listen to it over and over again. It inspires me. It helps me to remember that things will get better. Good things are up ahead and are just waiting around the corner. Just beyond the horizon, there is victory. After listening to this song, I feel like I can make it one more day because whatever it is that the Lord has in store for my life, I just haven’t seen it yet.
But as I was driving home from a meeting the other night, belting out this song at the top of my lungs, I stopped mid-Hallelujah.
It was like God was tugging at my heart.
Marissa, what if there is no bright sunrise? What if there is no other side of the darkest night? What if there’s no break of dawn? What if there are no promises up ahead? What if you have seen it all?
Can you still praise me for the victory? Will you still be content if this is all there is to life? Am I enough for you?
Or are you waiting for something up ahead before you can truly rejoice? Before you believe I love you? Before you trust me?
I was broken. My heart was exposed and it was wretched.
I’ve been holding onto the hope that things will get better. They have to get better. There’s no way God is going to leave us in a mess like this. The good guy always wins. David defeats Goliath, Moses leads the Israelites to the Promised Land, Daniel gets out of the lions’ den… alive! God’s not going to forget about us. Even Jeremiah 29:11 says, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'”
But hope is no hope at all, if it’s not found in Jesus.
For some people, things don’t get better. The cancer spreads, the divorce is finalized, the womb remains empty, the sickness leads to death.
Does it mean that the Lord’s plans for them was not to prosper, not to have hope and a future? Not necessarily.
Even the Apostle Paul faced a grim future. He was thrown in a prison cell, shackled and bound, and eventually beheaded. Not exactly the future one wants to see on the other side of the darkest night. What about Jesus? Of all people, you’d think his outcome would have been better. He was betrayed by one of his very own disciples, beaten beyond recognition, died a criminal’s death by being crucified on the cross.
Were they without hope and a future? At face value, it seems that way. But even from a prison cell, even from a cross; they had a future and a hope…an eternal one.
As Paul sat in a cold dark prison cell and as the Savior hung on the cross, I believe they would have still agreed that God had plans to prosper them and not to harm them. Plans to give them hope and a future. They rejoiced not in a hope found in this lifetime, but in life to come in eternity.
What seemed to be utter defeat for Christ, was the greatest victory of all. Jesus didn’t stay on that old rugged cross. No…waiting on the other side of that darkest night was the most glorious day ever known to mankind. Death would lose it’s sting. The grave was conquered once and for all. At the break of dawn the faithful would proclaim, “He has risen; He has risen indeed.”
So even if things do not get “better” for me here on earth, I can still rejoice. I can still be content. I still have victory because I have an eternal hope…I just haven’t seen it yet!