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Anticipatience: My Made-Up Word of the Year
- Cheryl Balcom
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. – James 5:7-8
Witnessing God’s work often involves waiting.
And like a watchman for the morning, I’m waiting.
I keep checking the horizon, searching for the faintest glimmer of pink, but some days it feels like I’m permanently stuck in the darkness of predawn.
What about you? Is there a prayer going forth day and night from your lips? Is there a cry of your heart on repeat?Â
For a child to come home, for a loved one’s salvation, for physical or spiritual healing?
Waiting can feel like a dark and endless tunnel with no light at the end. If we’re not careful, fears, questions, and what-ifs can pin us permanently beneath a little gray cloud.
If we peek outside that tunnel, step out from under that cloud, and look to Scripture, we can find a more hopeful way to wait.
We can wait with anticipatience.
More than just waiting patiently
There are many references to waiting in the Bible. From the Hebrew slaves in Egypt waiting for their deliverer to the longing for the promised Messiah to come, God’s people have had to wait.
As we study Scripture, we see that often what they waited for had been foretold. But they had to be patient, sometimes for centuries, to see it fulfilled.
What carried them through those long, turbulent years of waiting?
Anticipation. Expectation. Faith.
Anticipatience is the blending of anticipation (looking forward to, expecting, or regarding as probable) with patience (long-suffering, compliant, and submissive obedience) to create a heart posture of waiting with a trusting, confident expectation.
In our prayer life, we can present our requests before the Lord with full assurance that he hears us. Yet that doesn’t mean we then sit back, sighing and somber. As we entrust our concerns, our people, and our circumstances into his hands, we can have joyful confidence that he is already working. He is moving in each situation, each heart involved, for our good and for his glory (Romans 8:28-29).
I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! - Psalm 27:13-14
The opposite of striving
Praying with anticipatience involves not only the complete surrender of who or what we are praying about, but a surrender of our hearts as well. Fully relinquishing all outcomes to God frees us from feeling as if the answers depend on us. As we trust that God is working, we can focus our energy on watching for his hand at work and rejoicing in what we see.
Having anticipatience means our prayers are full of
Hope
Joy
Trust
Confidence
Excitement
We serve a powerful, mighty God who is loving, kind, and just. The people we are lifting up to him? He loves them more than we do. That difficult circumstance or relationship we’re walking through? He knows every detail.
These prayers crumpled in our clenched hands? We may have to hold them out before the Lord a little longer. And that’s okay. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit that lives within us, as believers. We are not alone in our waiting; the Holy Spirit of God strengthens us. And he makes everything beautiful in its time (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
Anticipating the answer, whether we see it or not
Though the faith of his people often wavered, God’s promises trickled steadily through generations like a stream in a desert, along with the stories of God's mighty acts of rescue and provision. Promises were passed on until their joyous fulfillment arrived, though some were not fulfilled until hundreds of years later. Hebrews 11:13 reminds us that many "died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth."
Still, those who joyfully watched and waited with expectation, remembering the stories, trusting in God’s faithfulness, were blessed to see the answer to their prayers. Think of the Israelite captives in Babylon, hearing the decree to return to their land and rebuild the temple as Jeremiah and Isaiah had prophesied. Picture Simeon in the temple, centuries later, who finally saw God’s salvation in the baby Messiah nestled in his arms.
God doesn’t promise to answer every one of our prayers exactly the way we want – thankfully, he knows what is best for us. But he does vow to hear our prayers and to never leave nor forsake us—and we know he is a promise keeper.
Will you pray with anticipatience this year?
As much as I'd hoped that anticipatience, my made-up word of the year, was clever and original, I discovered I was not the first to think of it. But it’s sticking with me as I pray fervently for specific loved ones to surrender their hearts to the generous, saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This year, will you commit to the long game of praying consistently, patiently?
Will you commit with me to pray in excited anticipation of what the Lord will do?
Let’s be like watchmen for the morning, waiting patiently through the night for the joy that we know is coming.
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I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
And in his word I hope;
My soul waits for the Lord
More than watchmen for the morning,
More than watchmen for the morning.
Psalm 130:5-6
Scripture challenge: Can you find in your Bible where and when the following promises made by God were fulfilled?
