Pre-Advent Devotional

Isaiah 30:18: Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you;
therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for him.

This is a devotional I wrote for our JM Devotional Ministry, cross-posted here.

This morning I picked up a book by Paula Gooder called The Meaning is in the Waiting. I haven’t started the book itself yet, but I did read the forward by Lauren F. Winner. She says this:

We are told, by advertisements and by our Blackberries, to squeeze time dry, to use it well, to maximize it. The church tells us a different story about it (time) -- it is God’s and there is enough of it, more than enough. The church’s narrative about time is never clearer than during Advent, when we are invited to spend our time very foolishly indeed. We are invited to wait. Just to wait.

Take a breath. Take some time. Waste it. Waste it during a season when everything around you demands that you make the most of your time. Wait on God.

Lauren Winner tells us that something amazing happens when we do. We find that God is waiting on us. The image that came to my mind was of a parent waiting up at night for a teenager to come home. God is waiting for us. “The Lord waits to be gracious to you.”

I find myself in a time that feels like limbo. Thanksgiving has come and gone; Advent has yet to come. We are waiting to begin waiting. My devotional challenge to you this week is to give some thought to Advent. What will you do as you wait for God? How will you prepare yourself to begin?

My commitment this Advent is to find some quiet time each day for devotionals and prayer. I commit to more spiritual reading during this month. Our pastor this Sunday said that “we belong to the Truth.” I want to draw closer to the Truth during this time of waiting, and I am going to be intentional about it.

It is God’s time, and there is enough of it. Do what seems wasteful, and wait for God.

Prayer:

Creator God, who stretches a hand across the heavens and spreads the stars in the sky,
meet us in our waiting.
Loving Son, who came and comes and will come,
come today and meet us in our waiting.
Abiding Spirit, who waits with us,
speak to us in our waiting.
Loving God, grant us the courage to wait for you
and the grace to realize you wait for us.
Amen.