Waiting.....

Not only is Advent a time of preparation, it is a time of waiting.

Waiting....

Always waiting....

In long line-ups as we finish our shopping....

In traffic as people hurry and scurry to their next "Scheduled Christmas Event"....

And we wait for the celebration, the birthday celebration.

We'll be celebrating the birthday of a man named Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah.  The One the prophets spoke of in the annals of history.  He was coming into this ordinary, messed up, chaotic world to show folks how living should be done.  Unfortunately, we have not paid too much attention to this Messiah.  We don't seem to be able to catch his rhythm of life....the "doing to others as you would have others do to you", the "putting others first" bit, the "giving up of our selfish selves to be of service to others" kind of thing.  He has shown us how to do it but we just don't seem to catch it.

Oh, sometimes we manage to give a halfhearted attempt at doing good and we really catch on to what Jesus was telling us, but then our tongues get in the way.  We talk about this one and that one, we become unforgiving, we spit out curses like venom and expect to have good results of our "doing good".

Wrong.  Won't happen.  I've tried....and dang, I fail every time.

There is something that goes deeper, much deeper into the very core of our soul that God offers to us.  It's from another realm, another dimension I think.  It is the world of Spirit...unseen, alive and life changing.  How it works is a mystery to me...but it involves making conscious choices, of looking beyond ourselves, of taking up with a Messiah who is looking for radicals to change this world into something more useful and beautiful and, shall we say, more environmentally friendly.  We are the ones left here to care for it all, are we not???

Anyway, getting back to the waiting thing....we're waiting in our house too.

Waiting for Brittney's exams to be finished Tuesday so she can come over and make croissants with me.  Waiting for Matt to arrive home on Thursday to stay for a month or so.  Waiting for Shannon to have some time off to join in whatever we will do as a family, over the holidays.  And so we just wait...

Wait for promises to be fulfilled in the coming of Jesus, the Christ.

We did some waiting last week too at Kid's Klub.  We waited on tables for 70 helpers, children and their parents. It appears everyone had a good time, too!  Dave got all spiffed up and waited on everyone, serving turkey and dressing and helping in the kitchen.  He's a good influence on people around him.  I liked his tie:)

So, waiting can be a good thing.  Let's try to do it patiently and expectantly....full of hope.  It's how to change the world a bit at a time:)