Have you ever been stuck on a runway waiting for take-off? The minutes tick by slowly as you worry about not making your connecting flight or not beginning the vacation for which you are paying. You get impatient and think about how you can’t really “begin” your trip until you get to your destination. There you sit in a kind of limbo. The flight attendants are buckled in and there is nobody to give you a drink to quench your parched throat. You are not allowed to use the facilities. You can’t pull down your tray table and begin work on your computer. Everything is sort of on hold.
That is how I used to view waiting-as a sort of limbo! We tend to want what we want when we want it. God has been refining me in this waiting process for decades. What I didn’t realize until recent years is that waiting isn’t just the period we endure until we get we want. Waiting is not just the holding pattern until God gets around to doing what I hope. The wait is the plan for me. During this wait, I have to learn to trust and experience God.
In the book Wait and See by Wendy Pope, (I highly recommend it!), she says, “The wait is more about experiencing God in the delay.” The most important thing isn’t that God gives us what we want, the important thing is that God gives us himself. We can fully experience him when we seek his face and not the answer to a request we’ve made to him. It is about the object of our faith, not the subject of our prayer request.
This Sunday (December 1, 2019) was the first Sunday of Advent. Advent is from the Latin word which means coming. During this season, the Church expectantly awaits the celebration of the birth of Jesus (and ultimately his Second Coming.) It is a remembrance of the thousands of years that God’s people waited for their Messiah-their Savior. They did not always wait faithfully, but they waited. They anticipated.
Just as I am not to live my life in a “holding pattern” but instead use the time to draw near to God, so it is with the Church. Let us not just show up on Christmas Eve after a season of hustle and bustle. Let us savor the wait. Let us focus on him daily for the next four weeks. Let us anticipate God’s fulfillment of prophecy. Let us plan to commemorate the birth of Christ.
During the season of Advent, many church traditions have an advent wreath with four candles with which to mark the wait. As time passes, with each consecutive Sunday leading up to the Sunday before Christmas, a new candle is lit. The candles represent themes: hope, faith, joy and peace, that one might consider during this meaningful anticipation. It is said that as the winter solstice approaches in late December that more light was added on the advent wreath. As the darkness increased, the light increased. Jesus is the answer to the darkness. He is the one long awaited. John 1:4-5 says that “In him was life and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Advent is more than those cute little countdown calendars with treats inside; Advent is to be a period of preparation to celebrate our Savior. As we wait, we focus on God, recognizing that the wait itself is important. The wait during Advent is like the wait I have endured for so many years praying for a loved one’s heart that has yet to be changed. My waiting is not a holding pattern, it is a way to experience God. We prepare to celebrate that God in the person of Jesus came to live and walk among us as light in the darkness. We prepare to celebrate when Jesus comes again.
And so we wait… let us do it not as if our lives are on hold, let us do it in a way that honors God. “But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.” Micah 7:7.
To help prepare your heart this Advent season, consider reading through the book of John or check out this free downloadable Advent devotion by John Piper. (After you download, don’t miss doing the few short readings to catch up!)
The Dawning of Indestructible Joy: Daily Readings for Advent
May the light of Christ fill your holiday season!