Advent Beckoning

Much of our waiting is of the forced variety.  It does not count.  Forced waiting is done because someone says, ""You have to do it."  Time spent in waiting rooms, traffic jams, and lines that end in a cash registers do not count for the kind of waiting to which Advent invites us.  Where is it that we wait because we choose to wait?  Where is it that we enter into a moment knowing that the waiting is more an integral part of the moment than the doing part?  Where is it in our life that we express patience in the time table and the scheduling of God? 

 

How do we go from seeing ourselves as the one who is in charge, the one who should be at the center of attention, the one whose agenda is the most important to being the one who is simply content to be wherever it is that God decides is the place for us to be?  Coming to such a place puts us in a position where we are more likely to be able to walk at a different pace which will allow us to include time for discovering that God has plans and purposes He desires to work out in our lives.  Those who rush through life with their mind set on accomplishing all the stuff that has their name on it are not likely to look for the things on which God has put their names.

 

Waiting as Advent beckons us to wait can never be a planned activity.  It is more the by-product of other lifestyle choices.  It may be what enables the waiting on God part of our life is the prioritizing that prunes the parts of our life which are not really connecting us to the life giving and life sustaining Vine (John 15).   As the unnecessary things begin to fall from our life, our inner being is finally able to see a heart that is waiting with longing for God.  And in that moment when the waiting overwhelms us, we will know God present and will we need to know nothing else.