We spend quite a bit of our lives waiting.
We wait for medical appointments, test results, to catch the bus, for workers to repair a broken appliance, and so many other things. How do you use those moments while waiting? More and more the tactic most commonly used is distraction. Most of us have smart phones that have plenty of apps to distract us for those moments of waiting so we don’t of life in part by learning how to wait effectively. Distracting ourselves in not the best way to learn this, and yet again and again we fall into the lure of easy distractions.
Advent is a season of waiting. It is a season of longing for God to come into our lives, but also a season of learning how to wait effectively. The world is a mess, as it perpetually is. It is beyond our power to fix the world, have to think about it. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it can gloss over the feeling of waiting somewhat. Waiting includes an element of longing, sometimes even an intense desire for the time to come, whatever time that might be. Yet, there is also part of waiting that requires patience. It requires slowing down, tamping down our desire for instance results, and being able to function with the uncertainty of not knowing what life might bring next. We have to learn how to wait productively – not stressing out or being over- whelmed to the point of not being able to function. We learn to deal with the challenges and yet we cannot simply leave it as it is, either. Advent is a time of remembering God’s promise to appear and bring renewal to the earth, as well as a time of learning to wait effectively for that time. Such waiting means being patient but also includes remaining engaged in the world. Too easily we distract ourselves with trivial things to the point that we miss out the real signs of God already at work around us and the call to participate in that work, even as we await the coming in fullness of God’s reign. I invite you this Advent into a time of waiting.