I Gave Up
Happy Advent. If you don’t know what that means that’s ok. It’s just a fancy word that means coming. Advent is also a beautiful season in the life of the Christian church where followers of Jesus reflect on Jesus’ first coming as a mere babe in Bethlehem and at the same time expectantly look forward to his second coming when he promises, in the words of Tolkien, to make all the sad things come untrue.
A huge theme of Advent is waiting. I have reflected on waiting in the past. In short, I am really bad at waiting. But I am slowly learning that it is in the waiting that I see God do his best work.
Rewind to March of 2020… yeah… fun right? When the world shut down there were some amazing ladies at our church who started a morning and evening prayer Zoom call. They kept that prayer call going twice a day, Monday-Friday, all the way through the late fall of 2020. When we first started the prayer call I was pumped! I was expecting to see God do awesome things despite the pandemic. It was the closest I ever got to becoming a Charismatic.
Then life began to happen.
Instead of seeing God do amazing things I witnessed his people put their hope in the kingdom of this world, not his kingdom.
Instead of seeing God’s people unite around his love, I saw God’s people dehumanize one another over things like masks and vaccines.
Instead of seeing God’s people dig into their local churches to support one another, I saw many Christians walk away from the faith because things got difficult.
The prayer calls kept going but the hope that God was going to do something amazing began to dwindle.
Fast forward almost 18 months and I have to admit that I had pretty much given up on waiting for God to do something amazing. I just figured things were too broken.
This Advent season has led me to reflect on the things we began praying for almost two years ago.
You know what?
I am beginning to see rays of light shine through the brokenness. I am seeing people I have had the privilege of pastoring for a decade begin to wake up to God’s presence in new and fresh ways. New people are showing up who are hungry to be with Jesus and become like Jesus. Prayers that were prayed almost 2 years ago are now beginning to come to fruition.
As I reflect on all of this, I am actually grateful that it has taken this long.
Why?
Because it reminds me that I had nothing to do with it! All I had done over the past 2 years is shrug my shoulders and give up hope.
But God hasn’t given up.
This Advent season reminds us that God isn’t done with humanity. God isn’t done with you. The arch of the Christian story doesn’t end with the ceasing of my hardships or suffering in this life. The arch of the Christian story goes beyond my short life on earth. The arch of the Christian story ends (or really begins, depending on how you look at it) like this:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
-Revelation 21:1–5
This is what we are ultimately waiting for. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to see God break into the darkest places of our life. And sometimes we aren’t. Sometimes we are called to wait.
Why?
I don’t know.
But I do know this, our waiting is not in vain. Your waiting is not in vain. May this Advent season instill a hope deep in your soul that allows you to look beyond this moment. May we all focus on what is to come when all the sad things will come untrue.
Grace and peace ‘til we rise in glory.
