I used to not care about Advent. Honestly, I didn’t really even understand it. All I knew was that at church before the sermon, some family would get up on stage, read a section in Scripture about the birth of Jesus, and light a candle. Or that there were little calendars with candy pieces for each day prior to Christmas that we would open.
I didn’t realize how Advent could prepare me. Or remind me. Or change me.
I missed a lot growing up… I missed a lot in my twenties. I wonder often what I’m still missing in my thirties. I’d like to think that I’ve now wholly embraced the fullness of Advent, but I know there’s still much to learn.
Join Me?
I’m wondering if you’d consider joining me in the quest to learn and grow. If you’d be willing to engage with Advent in a way that alters our daily choices, be it ever-so-slightly.
For the past few years, this has been a conscious decision that coincides with my longing for new habits (maybe yours, too?). These are the habits that recenter me and remind me that Jesus is King. Habits that make me pause, slow down, shift my focus. They don’t have to be lifelong habits, either. Maybe they are just habits that you adopt for the few weeks of Advent (but maybe they become habits that transform the things we truly long for…). Wouldn’t that be something?
There are tons of resources for this. Resources that help us choose to be people who are willing to change/add/subtract one thing so that Jesus reigns a little more in our hearts this holiday season.
Maybe we choose to read Scripture before jumping on social media for the next four weeks. Or perhaps we commit to prayer in ways we haven’t in a long while. Or what if we actively approach life – people, circumstances, current events – with a desire to first understand instead of assuming we know all, or know best? What if we gave… and what if that giving actually cost us something?
2020 Advent
Last year, Kel and I chose to engage with Advent in a bit of a different way. We used many of these basic elements, lighting a candle each evening while playing Matt Maher’s “Hope for Everyone” (a song we had seen him perform live a few years back that has stuck with us through Advent every since). We are waiting on the promise. For the one who lights the darkness. Bending low to be among us. We swayed to those lyrics for weeks before dinner each night. Pausing. Remembering. Waiting.
2020 had been a hard year. Probably for all of us. 2021 might not be that much different. These little shifts and acknowledgements through those weeks leading up to Christmas served a “re-setting” of sorts, though.
Reminders of hope. Reminders that my circumstances don’t define me – neither does my job, my marital status, my ability to bear children biologically, or the accolades of others.
I got to be reminded every day that we are still waiting, still anticipating the fullness of the Gospel realized. I was reminded that Jesus came, when He didn’t have to…. when I don’t deserve for Him to. That He chose us, chooses us, when we still choose other things over Him daily. It brings out awe and wonder. It draws forth tears.
It makes me pause.
It helps create a little of that space. ‘Thin places’ where heaven and earth collide for a mere instant. Hope is found. Not in our humanity, of course. Despite our humanity. Despite the division, the despair, the loneliness, the inability to reconcile, the unwillingness to look past ourselves… our needs, our wounds, our being ‘right’.
Throughout Advent, we readily acknowledge the ‘already but not yet’. That Jesus has come, He has conquered, the work has been finished, and we readily await His return. We exist in our broken day-to-day of miscommunication, taking things too personally, feeling inadequate, wanting to quit… and we simultaneously take a deep breath to remember The Promise. We are waiting on The Promise.
A day when all that is wrong will be righted. Where justice will reign. Where tears will be wiped away. Where death is defeated.
Will you wait with me?
Will you exist in the tension with me? Coming, broken, but holding tightly to the hope that we have? Will you declare the goodness of God, even when it can feel like He has turned away? Can you celebrate in His provision, even if it can feel like he lead you out of Egypt into the wilderness of wandering? Can we trust His timing, His ways, His views that are so much higher…?
Sometimes I forget to wait with expectation. To wait with hope. Anticipation. Sometimes I wait with anger, with defeat, with insecurity and despair.
Come with me this Advent. Let’s wait with crazy anticipation. Let’s believe the promises of our King. Let’s share what we learning, let’s rejoice together.
Change/add/subtract one thing these next 4 weeks with the intent of refocusing, re-centering, remembering, drawing near to the Father… waiting on The Promise.
Maybe it will change us. Maybe it can change even those around us. There’s hope for everyone.
