The Waiting Season: Embracing the Quiet In-Betweens

There is something comforting about the sound of migrating geese as they pass above my house. It’s a sound I know to expect this time of year and yet it fills me with peace and wonder.

It’s the sound of change.

I’m starting to get used to the process of waiting. It helps that time seems to be going faster these days, but I’m adjusting to not knowing what happens next.

I know that one day I’ll wake up and the things that are troubling me will be over. There will be new things, but these same worries and struggles are mostly temporary.

I know it’s a bit early to start thinking about Christmas and Advent, but it’s the first place my mind goes when I think about waiting. There is something beautiful and holy about it.

One of the things I love most about the season of Advent is that its focus is on the desperation and uncertainty of the waiting process. The Messiah had been promised, and yet, the timing was uncertain and not everyone was even sure what they were waiting for.

With people like Simeon and Anna, hope continued to abound. With others like the Pharisees, they had moved on with their lives, intent upon building themselves a comfortable place to live out their existance, no longer expectant or even truly desiring of the arriving Messiah. So much so that when he arrived they couldn’t even recognize him. Because he messed with their plans. He challenged them and pushed them out of their comfortable boxes.

The people who seemed to recognize Jesus most were the ones who needed him most. When we recognize our need for rescue, it is easier to recognize our savior when he comes.

As I wait to see God reveal himself in the difficulties in my own life and the lives of my children and those that I love, I am unable to make things happen on my own. I wish I could. Trying to take on the problems I face with my own human wisdom usually results in more problems than solutions.

But this doesn’t mean that I am simply in a holding pattern either, though it often feels that way. My pastor said once that the word for wait in scripture, when referencing waiting upon the Lord, is an active word, like a server waiting on a table.

I can wait while I wait. I can serve while I’m in the in-between

This doesn’t mean I fill my life to the brim to distract myself. I’ve been there. I don’t believe that’s the point of the times of waiting. These are times to serve where it seems needed most, where we are able not necessarily particularly gifted.

I don’t think we need to quit all that we are doing and become completely inactive, but I do think we need to set aside time and space to draw closer, into a more intimate place where we can be more clearly attuned to our need, and see more clearly our coming rescue.

The privilege of the modern Advent celebration is that we know the end of the story. We can celebrate the glory of the incarnation, the crucifixion, and resurrection, both seasonally and daily, even as we wait to see how God will work in our current circumstances.