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Guided By an Unseen Hand – Part 2
Just two months ago, I wrote about trusting God’s hand even when you can’t see his plan. In a short time so much has changed, and yet the challenge to walk by faith remains. After a year and a half of waiting, praying, trusting, my husband was offered a new job. But it didn’t come in the package we expected. The trials of the past year opened our hands. Eventually we told the Lord we’d go anywhere—we just wanted to be used by him to make a difference. And he answered. My husband was offered a job nearly four hours from where we currently live. We’ve both grown up in…
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“I don’t like surprises! I just want to know when Jesus is going to come back.”
As bedtimes so often go, my four-year-old uses the last few minutes of the day in hopes that he can begin a conversation that will require me to linger just a little bit longer. Most recently, he began a line of questioning that started with curiosity about the new heaven and the new earth, and then morphed into an intense desire to understand Jesus’ triumphant return (Rev. 21:1, Matt. 24:42-44). He did not receive the news well when I explained that Jesus says we won’t know when he’s coming back. Worst case scenario, we wait. If you have parented any preschoolers recently, then you know that waiting is not one…
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Advent as Reality Check: Learning to Wait
The thirty-minute sitcom has played havoc with my perseverance. Growing up as a child on a media diet of seeing wrongs righted and relationships healed in 30 minutes flat gave me a false sense of how the world works. Advent cures that mindset. At Advent I sit, waiting with Israel under Roman rule. I look for the Messiah. I don’t know the time of His coming. Will I recognize him? O come, O come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel That mourns in lonely exile here Until the Son of God appear. At Advent I fix my eyes on the coming Christ. O come, Thou Bright and Morning Star, And bring…
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Then They Remembered Jesus’s Words
Jesus died around three in the afternoon (Luke 23:44–46). The faithful and courageous women disciples who had accompanied Jesus from Galilee—including his mother, Mary—stayed with him until he exhaled his last breath. Then they followed those who carried his body to the tomb to see where it was laid. After that they returned home to prepare aromatic spices and perfumes for anointing and preserving the body (Luke 23:55–56). How exhausted and devastated the women must have felt. We believed he was the Messiah! He was going to start a new kingdom. But we watched him die. He raised others from the dead so why did he let himself be crucified?…
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Beauty in the Waiting
Gray skies. Still, stiff air. Walking for miles with no end in sight. Waiting. If you had to describe waiting in your own life, how would it look? Hurried and determined by nature, to me waiting feels like a long walk with no clear direction. I step out the front door on a dreary day and go, uncertain of where I’m going or when I’ll arrive. I know the walk is good for me—strengthening muscles and teaching me to trust. But I struggle to enjoy the journey. And I hesitate to trust the One guiding me throughout the twists and turns. I run ahead. I take a break. I struggle…
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God is Not Slow, He is Patient
Why do you take so long to act? Why are you so slow? I whined to the Lord as I settled into my folding chair at the local lake. Armed with my bag of books, journal, and Bible, I wasn’t leaving until I received an answer from the Lord. Not expecting an audible reply, I began my regimen of study and meditation. Some time later, two small girls and their grandmother caught my attention. I paused my journaling and watched them return to their car after swimming in the lake. The older girl quickly put on her shorts over her swimsuit and got in the car, but her little sister…
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Stuck in the Waiting Room
We all have spent a lot of time waiting since March 2020. Waiting for the end of lockdowns. Waiting for election results. Waiting for a COVID vaccine to be developed. Waiting to get a vaccine. I still wait to hug my oldest grandson. I’m eager to get back to face-to-face teaching of my refugee students. I wait to enjoy the sound of a roomful of women speaking Arabic, Amharic and other tongues while drinking tea and savoring walnut-filled pastries. And speaking of waiting, more than 79.5 million forcibly displaced people worldwide wait for stable homes, according the UN Refugee agency. The dire circumstances of so many burden me. What do…
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Waiting for Normal
My husband and I put up our Christmas tree on October 25. Call us eager. And bored. But despite all the glitter and music, the gifts and velvet bows, almost half of Americans wrestle through the holidays—even without a pandemic. Mental health workers say that some people get the holiday blues because there’s this perception and comparison of others having more and doing more. Enter 2020. Humpty Dumpty has fallen. It’s not just COVID cases that have surged. Loneliness, anxiety, and depression have also spiked this year. Weeks of waiting have turned into long months. Although Advent is the season of waiting, many could do without it by now—the…
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When Prayers Go Long: Trusting God While We Wait for Answers
The tired friend. The good father. The unjust judge. Jesus knew that persistent prayer takes grit. It wears down our give-it-to-me-now mentality. It raises hard questions. It takes an ever-growing faith. So he gave us some poignant pictures to keep us going. In all three of his parables on prayer, Jesus reminds us—keep asking, even when the waiting grows long and wearisome. Here are three lessons we can learn from Jesus’ parables: Pray with fearless abandon. When Jesus’ disciples asked for a lesson on prayer, he gave them a pattern to follow. Then he gave them two vivid pictures. In so doing he encouraged more that rote iterations. He wants…
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Steps to a Calmer, More Christ-Focused Advent
The word ‘advent’ comes from ‘ad’ meaning ‘to’ and from ‘vent,’ a form of a Latin word meaning ‘coming.’ Advent is the season when Christians look back on the first advent, or coming, of Messiah, and we look forward to the second advent—his return. New Year’s Day in the church year, which follows the life and ministry of our Lord, begins this year on December 1—the day many Christians count as the first day of Advent. During the four weeks leading up to Christmas, a lot of churches observe Advent as a season of expectant waiting and the preparation of our hearts. Two millennia ago as Israel awaited the Messiah,…
