He chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praise of His glorious grace which he has freely given us in the One he loves. Ephesians 1:4-6
When I
think about the season of Advent, the word that always comes to my mind is
“waiting.” It’s not a word that evokes
feelings of firelight and presents or food and family. When my kids are begging me to go somewhere
or do something, the last word they want to hear is “wait.” We spent all this past week at the school
book fair, and my son wanted a different new thing every day, and he always
looked crushed when I said “Wait until the end and then we’ll decide.” I’m also hard pressed to think of an adult
that I now who enjoys being told to wait.
I think patience is a fruit of the Spirit because it's one of those
things that doesn’t come to us naturally.
And yet,
waiting seems to be God’s modus operandi.
For the One who is Eternally present, waiting makes sense. How miserable would tomorrow be if everything
we ever wanted happened today? The most
miserable people I know are the ones who have everything they thought they ever
wanted. Waiting is also the
anticipation of a kid for Christmas morning.
It’s the excitement of a bride and groom who kept the wedding day
sacred. It’s finally enjoying the fruit
of your long labor. The joy of holding
your baby after hours or days of birth pains.
In my
own life, “hurry up and wait” is like, on my to do list. Longing for people whom I love but am
separated from for a season. Hoping for
the Lord to come through in so many areas of life, family, ministry,
finance… The temptation is to think that
if God doesn’t answer me right now, according to my time, it’s probably never
going to happen and everything is hopeless.
But then that small voice reminds me that I’ve been saved from hopelessness
because I serve a God who authors hope, fulfills hope, and designs hope for my
good. Without that icky word waiting,
there is no such thing as hope!
Joseph
overcame betrayal, slavery, false imprisonment and literally just being
forgotten. The kids books and movies
don’t do justice to the decades of waiting he experienced, and yet after all of
the victories seemed won, his grandchildren spent 400 years as slaves. How many generations of Israelites were born
as slaves in Egypt, lived their entire lives as slaves in Egypt, and died as
slaves in Egypt without ever seeing the outcome of their suffering? How many of them felt like God had simply
forgotten about them?
God
eventually called Moses to lead them out, but to what? More waiting.
Kings lived and died, and eventually the Israelites were led into exile,
more waiting. The prophets were silent
for another 300 or so years…more hopeless generations. But without waiting there’s no place for
hope.
Paul
said that before the world was founded, we were chosen In Christ to be
holy and blameless, adopted to sonship.
That’s worth waiting for. The
Israelites learned and proved that “holy and blameless” is impossible to
achieve on our own. But the Lord knew
that. He predestined us to the adoption
that Christ made possible…before the world was even founded. If he can do that, working through thousands
of years of…waiting…what am I so worried about?
When I
think about the season of Advent, the word that always comes to my mind is
“waiting.” Not because Christmas is just
miserable and reminds me of the perceived misery of waiting, but because this
is the season where we remember that, after thousands of years of waiting and
hundreds of years of absolute silence, God finally broke through the barrier
and entered His creation to be with us and fulfill that adoption that was
predestined before the foundation of the world.
Waiting
feels miserable for limited, impatient, fallen people, but hope fulfilled is
worth the wait. Christ is here, He’s not
a baby anymore, He satisfied your debt and freely offers you His perfect
righteousness, He inaugurated your adoption plan, He promises to end it all
with something even better. Merry
Christmas, following Christ is worth the wait.
Justin, Amy, Ezekiel and Caleb Culp
