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Advent is Intentional Waiting



Plowing new Advent ground can be transformational if we lean into it and let it be.   It invites an experience of the coming of the King in a way that doesn’t pretend “it’s the most wonderful time of the year” when there is gaping pain all around.
4 Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the Lord [roll and repose each care of your load on Him]; trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) also in Him and He will bring it to pass.
6 And He will make your uprightness and right standing with God go forth as the light, and your justice and right as [the shining sun of] the noonday.
7 Be still and rest in the Lord; wait for Him and patiently lean yourself upon Him Psalm 37:7





On a personal level, in the midst of the lives of those we know, and certainly in the larger landscape of our world, there are hard places: Disappointments that we can’t let go of, wounds in our relationships, infirmity, soul-deep loneliness, bone crushing grief…  There can be a masking of what is with tinsel and bows this time of year.  Advent is what saves Christmas from being an exhausting, numbering, a wrote walking through of how we *should*  live out this month.

Lord, I wait for you; you will answer, Lord my God. Psalm 38:15



Advent offers an acknowledgment that our honest selves see the dark corners and confusion or distrust or disappointment can cover over joy.  Advent’s message is that precisely because those dark corners coexist with tinsel and bows that a cause celebration is in order. Or maybe a waiting on celebration. A watching for celebration. Intentional anticipation.  A paying attention and fixing eyes to the hills so that we see Healing coming when it appears….

In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning
I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly. Psalm 5:3

I have devoted myself to something in these coming weeks.  Here is my “wishing you a Merry Little Christmas” anticipation for myself over the next four weeks… and I would love to pray it over you too:

An offering of my sustained attention for the next 30 days.

Resolve to SLOW

Focus in my heart on Kingdom life available now

Eyesight to see the light shine through the broken cracks of life

A spirit settled in waiting

A single resolve toward others

A remembrance that NOTHING matters without his Presence

Insistence on the Reclamation of disappointed spaces in life for the cause of HIS awe shining forth

A soul tuned toward awe

An agenda to point toward the Coming

A determination to pull inward and center, rather than sling around the periphery of my to-do’s

A rejection of competition

Becoming a “womb” for God

Creating space in this Temple that is my body for his presence

A belief that God’s Plan B always outshines our most determined Plan A

A cultivating of wonder

An overflow of gratitude


Psalm 27:13-14 (AMP)

13 I would have despaired had I not believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord
In the land of the living.
14  Wait for and confidently expect the Lord;
Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for and confidently expect the Lord.

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