Waiting!

We are in the middle of Advent. The word “advent” means “coming,” and of course, it’s a reference to the coming of Christ at Christmas. So over the next four weeks, we await the coming of Christ.

We’re not very good at waiting. We want everything immediately! Think about it: The fast food industry has exploded in the last thirty years because people want their food quickly, and don’t have the time or patience to cook it at home. We have fast food drive-through lines because it’s "way too much work" to park the car, walk several feet and stand in line to order. And even with drive-through lines, if you’re like me, you become impatient if the line is not moving quickly enough! Now we have Dash and UberEats, which delivers food right to our door. 

In this digital world of ours,  information can be shared instantly, which is fantastic on one level, but dangerous on another, as it’s too easy to text someone when we’re angry at him or her,  before we’ve given ourselves a chance to cool down. We have overnight printing, overnight mailing, instant food, microwave ovens—all things that allow us to get what we want now, without waiting. If we want something and can’t afford it, no need to wait and save for it—we have credit cards! The average American adult has an alarming nine open credit card accounts and carries an average debt on those cards of $8,000.  The T-Mobile song says "I want it all. I want it all. I want it all, and I want it NOW!"

So it’s hard for us to wait for Christmas—we hardly wait for anything else. Stores are already in the full court press, pushing us to get all our Christmas shopping done. I was in a local store in October, before Halloween, and they were already playing Christmas carols.  So in Church we’re singing “O Come O Come Emmanuel” but everywhere we go we’re hearing “Joy to the World, the Lord has Come. “

I want to suggest two simple things we can all do that may help us step back from the helter-skelter world of the instant, the “now” that we all live in—two things that might help us better focus on the event we will celebrate on December 25 and thus help us have a better Advent.

The first is this: Nothing helps us tune into the true “reason for the season” better than helping other people.  There’s not a better time to do it. The Christmas season is a very lonely time for many elderly, as they miss their spouses who have died, or perhaps their children who don’t visit them enough.  Do you have an elderly grandparent or other relative? Visit them--just you. Ask your mom and Dad if they can drop you off and pick you up. It'll make a world of difference to them. What about another older relative? An aunt? A great aunt? What about an elderly neighbor? You showing an interest in them will have a huge impact.   Be there for them! 

You know, it’s pretty common that we, too, can get depressed or start feeling blue at this time of year, and our tendency is to say to ourselves, “I need some time for myself”, some “me time” but that’s exactly backwards. The best way to get us out of our funk is to focus on the needs of others, to make others happy. This is a great time of year to do it.

My second suggestion to get us ready for Christmas, to help us more fully appreciate this Advent season, is to spend about 10 minutes/day in prayer, asking God to lead you, bringing your worries before him, seeking him for guidance on decisions you must make about friends and personal issues. God accepts all styles of prayer!  We just need to turn off our cell phones, thank God for all he's done for us, and then bring our worries and prayers to him.  We don’t lean enough on God—but unless we lean, we cannot feel him pushing back, holding us up. And so we put all this pressure on ourselves to make good grades, go to the right high school, worrying about what people think about us, instead of sharing those worries with God and asking him to help us.

If we go outside of ourselves to help others, if we pray and lean on God during these next few weeks, I think we’ll find this Advent season, this time of waiting, will help prepare us more fully for the most important event in human history. 

May we use our time well.