A Counter Culture Season

Waiting is about not rushing.   Rushing seems to be what we do best.  From sunrise to beyond sunset we rush.  We are always in a hurry.  According to the values of our culture, those who wait get run over and smashed flat as a doormat.  The world  blesses not the "meek," (Matthew 5:5) but those who have mastered the art of rushing and hurrying through life.  All we have to do is to take a moment to become a watcher of those around us to see this truth.  Advent is a counter culture season as it calls us to live as one who waits.

 

It is not easy for any of us to live out of step with the secular culture around us which is exactly what Advent calls us to do.  When we are forced to wait, we feel out of sync.  Those who make us wait must pay the price of sharply honked horns, condescending angry stares, and harshly spoken words.  We have no time for the slow to move, the slow to speak, and the slow to get out of our way. Living differently as one who is oriented toward the pace set by the Kingdom of God points us in a different direction, but we usually embrace the discipline of waiting only because we are forced to do so. 

 

Learning to wait is an important discipline for those desiring to live according to the Kingdom.  If we are going to know what God wants to do in our life, it will involve waiting.  The early day of Advent remind us that we are to live as those who are waiting for Jesus to come once again.  It calls us to live as those who are waiting on God to do new things.  God cannot be rushed and we cannot live caught up in the rush of life if we are to find His pace which enables us to see Him present in us and around us.