Waiting
A Promise Fulfilled…
I don’t often write from the position of vulnerability. It’s much easier to offer you answers and not questions. Today I’m struck with a question, though, and I want to think it through.
Like me, you may be living in a personal season of advent. It’s true that Christians acknowledge the Advent season, the four Sundays prior to Christmas where the coming of the Christ Child is anticipated and celebrated. There is dual meaning here because we also anticipate the return of the resurrected Christ. In either case, the Advent season is for the celebration of the coming fulfillment of a promise, and that’s what I’m driving at here.
Real people. With real questions. And real, unfulfilled promises. And waiting. My question is this:
When it comes to celebrating the advent of the Christ Child or anticipating the return of the resurrected Christ, my decision to enter into the celebration is not based on something subjective. The Christ Child has already come, and so in that sense I join the Jewish people as they waited for the Messiah … the Expected One. I don’t look within, or at my external circumstances to decide whether or not He’s really coming again. Just as the Jews knew then and they know now, that He.Is.Coming, I also know. And in spite of the hustle and bustle of the season I engage my heart in the celebration. And the waiting.
But here’s the kicker…
When I ponder my personal dreams and hopes I base the reality of their fulfillment on external evidence. I keep looking around me. I don’t see people lining up to make an offer on my house, for example. And my heart fails. I become incredibly discouraged because it doesn’t look like it’s happening at all! There’s no evidence, I moan to myself. Everything in me starts to believe I’ve made a mistake, that I’ve got the wrong idea. And, like a Border Collie on espresso I start the spin, chasing my tail round and round. Frustration! Agh! Questions! Grr! Doubts! Self-incrimination! With this I cease to celebrate the coming time when my home will be sold and I will be free to pursue other dreams.
The short answer is that it’s my old enemy, Unbelief, that keeps me from entering into the celebration. The longer, more complex answer is to choose a right response to the mess. I poke at my heart to take the first step, and I whisper softly, “Lord, You see this complexity in my heart. You see all things. How would You have me respond right now? How can I connect with You, right now?” And somehow, the process starts with my taking a bit of His unconditional acceptance. Then even though my heart is “two sizes two small” and a bit wrapped up in myself, I am able to look at the Father. And just let it be. Unfulfilled for now. A mess right now. But it had to be that way in Bethlehem too, that night.
“But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.
His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity. …
Because at that time He will great to the ends of the earth.
This One will be our peace.” Micah 5:2, 4b-5
Certainly no one in Bethlehem was expecting the birth of a King that cold night. Why there, exactly? And why Mary? God is funny sometimes in who He chooses for what tasks. But we can trust Him. Enter into Advent season this year … the celebration of Promise fulfilled. Waiting. Believing.
Leaving a Legacy
I remember when I was growing up, my Dad would show us stuff. He was intent on teaching us to identify trees and plants, like Morrel mushrooms, Bittersweet and Sumac. Of course he taught us useful stuff too, how to back up a truck with a trailer; how to drive a boat; how to collect sap and make Maple Syrup and, best of all, how to fish. Although my growing up years are mostly wrapped in nostalgia and I have few opportunities to exercise those skills, what I actually learned was this: I am limitless in my ability to learn a skill and do it. Dad taught us to be learners, and to not be afraid to try new things.
One year Dad decided to build a cabin on the back edge of our property. Dad was neither a builder nor an architect but he and my lovely, artist-in-residence Mom put their skills together. With the help of generous builder-type friends, the tiny, humble building came together. At the time the cabin served as the best fort and doll house a girl could ask for! We loved it! With it’s steeply-sloped corrugated roof, woodstove and dry sink, the cabin stood on stilts and overlooked the trout stream that ran through our property. My friends and I would traipse around in the woods and slosh in the creek for hours at a time.
It wasn’t until I was well into my adult years that I learned the strain that building the cabin placed on our family. Apparently it wasn’t the most fiscally responsible undertaking, nor was the building designed to withstand 25 years of rugged weather. My Dad has been gone for some time now, and yet the cabin stands perhaps as a tribute to his tremendous influence on our lives.
Talk is cheap and we spout ideas of who we are and what we’ll one day become. The fact is, we are not who we say we are. We are what we do.
Dad didn’t leave behind a cabin. He left behind a legacy of attempts to show us how important we were to him, how deeply he cared and how much he wanted us to love the things he loved.
Plain and simple, Dad wasn’t great at communicating. I still wonder about who he really was, and why he called me Scout.
But I know he loved me.
And I’m not afraid to try stuff.
Perilous Peaks of Awkwardness
Not too long ago I had the inexpressable joy of attending a party and running into a former romantic interest … together with his new fiance. Ah! What have I done, and whom have I angered in order to gain such an opportunity?
As this Unrequited Love made his way around my friend’s home, glad-handing old friends and schmoozing strangers, I couldn’t help but wonder how I had once been so enamored with him, so enthralled by his charm. Not that he was unclean, but he reminded me of Pigpen, the Charles Schulz cartoon character as he wandered around, leaving a billowing trail of unresolved conflicts and unfinished conversations in his wake. As I headed into the kitchen, it certainly felt like I was the one with a terrible headcold and a dearth of dateable men. It certainly felt like I was acutely alone, and not quite able to hide the extra ten pounds of fluff that has accompanied me this past year. I poured myself some lemonade and snarled at the yummy looking treats on the dessert table…certainly they’d been my companions far too often during the cold winter evenings. When another acquaintance walked up and asked the inevitable question, I clutched with disbelief. “So, are you seeing anyone?”, she asked. So this is how it feels! Thus far I’d only read about these perilous peaks of awkwardness. Since she wanted to tell about her own dating life more than she really wanted to know about mine, I listened meekly and later, excused myself and headed for home.
One of my favorite authors, Ann Kiemel, said this many years ago, “We all have a place of stretch in our lives. It’s what makes us strong. Rich people have troubled children, and poor people have healthy marriages and brilliant kids. It’s what makes us long for God with our whole being.”
And so I’ve given you a glimpse of one such place in my life but I would add this to Ann’s comment…we often do not realize that we are the ones who are rich. The truth is that we all suffer a private battle of some sort. Our failing is not that we are faced with situations that cut us to the quick. Rather it’s in believing that we are somehow poverty-stricken, and unable to do anything about them. Each one of us has so much in our lives that is rich and good and beautiful, things to make us laugh and love and hope.
“Don’t let your longing slay your appetite for living.” — Elizabeth Elliot
For now…
Remember your mother’s distracted promises, “We’ll see…” or “Well, we can’t now but perhaps later…” And then you wondered exactly when ‘later’ would come to pass?
Seems like I haven’t changed much from when I was a kid. “Later” means this afternoon possibly, yet still today. Certainly not into next week or, God forbid, next year. There’s no time with God, don’t ‘cha know? He created everything! Time is like a play-thing to Him. So when we stand around stamping our feet, and I know I do, He smiles at me. One of those long blinking smiles, in the way that you know that He’s got a totally different grid on this thing than you do…always. And, to be fair, He has a delightful way of making you forget the long weeks, months, and years of waiting and growing into the shoe size He’s got in mind.
There’s something to this idea about resting in my Father’s purposes. I remember when I was a child I used to walk with my Dad, standing on the toes of his steel-toed boots. Hand in hand, I’d ride while he’d stride. Yup. It worked. It took effort from both of us to pull this off. I had the tricky part of balancing. He had the difficult part of essentially carrying me. Hmm. My heavenly Father is much the same way. I have to keep my eyes on Him, and not try to pull my own weight. To rest is tricky. It’s not unlike waiting.
One of my favorite authors, Bob Sorge, said of waiting,
“How to wait: Run after Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Waiting is aggressive repose. Waiting is stationary pursuit. Waiting is intense stillness. Waiting is vigilant listening.” [italics mine] — The Fire of Delayed Answers
Stationary pursuit.
Intense stillness.
How does one stand still and still pursue? And how did stillness become intense? This reminds me of how things become upside down in the economy of God. The last shall be first. The weak become strong. It’s here in the Kingdom of God that pursuit is stationary and stillness is intense. May we pursue Him with all that we have, all that we are, and He’ll meet us more than halfway.
“May the beloved of the Lord dwell in security by Him who shields him all the day, and he dwells between His shoulders.” — Deut. 33:12
May you dwell this night between the shoulders of God.
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