advent: prophecy, hope and impatience
This is the first week of Advent. It's a season I truly love, not just for the decorations and the music and the smells and the goodies and all the family stuff, but for the celebration of the birth of Jesus. I love Jesus and I love this time of year when we get to anticipate His birth into humanity as well as His second coming. I love the ways that we get to celebrate who Jesus is by giving to others, by connecting with and loving others.
Traditionally the first week of Advent represents prophecy, as well as hope. It's a time to look into the Old Testament and see the amazing foretelling of Christ, and it's truly beautiful to recognize that from the beginning, Jesus was woven into our story. There was never not a plan to rescue us from ourselves, from the sin that would entangle all of us. Jesus was always that plan.
The Old Testament took place over a long period of time though, and was followed by 400 years of silence from God. And I can't help but think that this week, when we celebrate those prophecies and the hope that they bore, we also have to acknowledge patience and trust. Because during all those years, during famines and exiles and prophecies, there were times when God's people became impatient. There were times when their impatience led them to stop trusting God. This never turned out well. And yet, this is the place that I can relate to.
WonderHubs has been traveling for work for the past 3 months. This leaves me home alone with 8 kids. It's been a huge adjustment and it hasn't been easy on any of us. There's plenty to be thankful for. He has a job. He loves what he's doing. I have been surrounded and supported and loved on by friends and church family. We are confident that God is at work in this and that He has a plan. And yet, that doesn't stop me from getting impatient, from wanting to take control of it all and brute force us into a "better" situation where we are all together instead of separated by miles.
And that is right where I was a couple weeks ago. I was fed up with the situation. It was wearing on me. It was wearing on the kids. I was exhausted and just plain done with it. My thoughts turned from being excited about what God was doing and wanting to follow Him to trying to control the situation, imposing timelines and throwing pity parties and hissy fits. It really wasn't pretty.
Time to build card houses
If I'm honest, at this point, had it been one of my kids interacting with me, I would have grounded them or made them listen to one of my way too long speeches about gratitude and attitude. But God is so good. It was at that point that He, seeing my foot stomping, control taking, impatient , hissy fit throwing self, had patience with me. On the Thursday before Thanksgiving my crazy parents decided we should all go to the beach for Thanksgiving. A week as a family on a beach that I've been going to for 30+ years, where WonderHubs and I honeymooned and have vacationed with our own tribe. The ocean. Cousins. Sisters. Crazy parents who brought a turkey to the beach and cooked it! God is good.
Time to fish.
I may not be patient but He is. He is faithful and trustworthy. And when we look back into the Old Testament and see thousands of years of anticipation and impatience among our ancestral fellow man, we also see thousands of years of God's patience and faithfulness. Often waiting is not easy, even if we are hopeful, even if we do know that there is a plan in place. And so in this first week of Advent as we look back at prophecies and a people who held out hope for thousands of years, instead of seeing their impatience, instead of being overcome by our own impatience, be reminded of God's patience and God's faithfulness, because where we run out of patience and forget to trust Him, He is still patient with us, still faithful to fulfill His promises.
