Yesterday, I listened to author/Bible teacher Jill Briscoe teach on the subject of “Waiting It Out: Helps For the Long Haul.”

She was discussing how hard it is to wait for God’s perfect timing when He has allowed us to enter into a wilderness. We simply want OUT.  But until that time comes, we are consigned to waiting.

At one point, she shared something that immediately caught my attention: “Waiting with an attitude of acceptance (rather than resignation) allows me to wait expectantly and say to the Lord, ‘I will watch to see how You bring redemption from this mess.”

I absolutely LOVE that attitude, that sense of expectancy, that rock-solid, God-given HOPE that Jesus’s death on the Cross purchased for us.

Redemption is what Jesus does! Redemption is His specialty, His passion, His delight, His purpose, His greatest gift to us!

There is not one person, not one situation that He cannot redeem!

In Him we have redemption (deliverance and salvation) through His blood (the remission) and forgiveness of our sins … in accordance with the riches and the generosity of His gracious favor. —Ephesians 1:7

The word redemption means: “a releasing effected by payment of ransom, deliverance, liberation, rescue.”

On the Cross, Jesus did for us what we could never do for ourselves: give us right standing before a holy God when He took our penalty for our sin onto Himself.

In that one momentous, victorious, earth-shattering moment, He took care of our greatest need once and for all.

Glorious, beautiful and eternal redemption became ours! We have been given the greatest gift in the history of the world!

The good news is that that same redemption continues its triumphant march today both across the stories of our lives and the fragile terrain of our hearts.

His redemption is capable of reaching into and utterly transforming every single area of our lives, the good, the bad and the ugly. His redemption is capable of making all things beautiful in His perfect timing.

Our role is to let Him.

We can choose to either fight Him or to surrender to His loving care and good purpose.

We can choose to become bitter as we wait or we can choose to wait expectantly and with blazing hope in our Savior who is forever with us.

I have seen His gracious gift of redemption in my own life in countless ways. There have been situations where I thought my heart was going to break or stop beating altogether. I did not see any way out. Yet … in His own supremely loving and gentle way, He absolutely astonished me as I watched Him redeem each and every painful situation in ways that left me filled with breathless wonder and amazement. I will never get over those things. They are the precious cords that bind my grateful heart to my all-powerful and wondrous Redeemer and Savior.

Elisabeth Elliot famously said, “In acceptance lies peace.”

If today finds you in a wilderness or in the midst of a mess, would you choose to accept that Jesus is right there with you? He has not forgotten you. He knows. He sees.

Would you allow Him to fill your heart with His peace?

Would you trust His Word more than you trust your feelings?

And will you begin to praise Him right now for the fact that He will allow you to see–whether on this earth or in eternity— His magnificent, shining, triumphant gift of redemption in this situation?

The Master Artist is always at work! And He only makes masterpieces!

“Leave it all in the Hands that were wounded for you.” —Elisabeth Elliot