Waiting for God Knows What
H O P E
Advent means waiting or arrival: the Sundays before Christmas are the beginning of the yearly liturgical church calendar. Advent begins not by celebrating but by waiting - waiting for God to act.
Waiting is not having: It assumes a lack of something and we don’t like that feeling. It’s the embarrassment of sitting alone at a table for two and telling the server that your date will show up any minute, yet inwardly you’re already feeling the shame of having been stood up. We fear our waiting has been in vain and we feel ashamed.
The Bible says that no one who waits for God will be put to shame. But even if we truly wait for God, we don’t really know what we’re waiting for. That’s the mystery of Advent in a nutshell.
“What are you waiting for?” “God.”
“What’s he going to do?” “I don’t know.”
A natural question to ask is, “Why wait if you don’t know what will happen?”
The paradox is we wait not for what we know but for what we don’t know. And most of our waiting for Jesus happens when we’re in the dark, figuratively and sometimes literally. Advent tells us not to wait for an event, an occurrence, a specific goal, but to wait for God himself. Because God is always bigger than our ideas, our plans, our programs.
Maybe you’ve felt stood up by God, but we can choose to stay at the table because in our spirit we know better - we can speak to our own soul that God will come, and we won’t be disgraced. The Bible is full of people who speak the truth to their inner selves in order to restore their own hope.
“Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him.” Isaiah 42:5
Advent is the preparation for a newness that can break the patterns of fear and loneliness in our lives. We can anticipate newness through an old story that rewrites itself every December. This story mostly takes place in the dark. But we don’t have to be afraid of the dark, because even when we don’t know what we’re waiting for, God offers the same message: do not fear. Because God is already here, AND he’s coming with more. The Presence of God is infinite, everywhere, always, and forever, AND he’s coming with more.
There is something on the horizon, and it will be God himself coming to rescue us from our own brokenness, our exhaustion, our divided self that’s spread too thin. He will come and lead us into wholeheartedness: body, mind, soul, and spirit all connected at last. Only God could be so outrageous as to burst into our world when we’re not looking and bring us gifts. Every week during Advent a new gift will be unwrapped. You’re invited to see what’s inside.
This is Living Now
For now, though, we wait. Advent is not a time of casual waiting, it’s the movement from something to something more. Even when it seems like nothing is happening, God is sowing seeds for something to come forth in your life. Seeds grow only in darkness and quiet. It takes time. And it means hoping for what we do not yet see, which takes bravery and trust in the unknown.
Then God has room to do something amazing and wholly unexpected: He strews light and beauty around you like rose petals, enveloping you in love and anticipation for the new, the more, the grand gifts of heaven. Make room, and it will change your life