Advent Ponderings 1: Waiting for Answers

Advent is a season for waiting.  Waiting is hard.  Waiting is sometimes necessary.  I have a friend that always reminds me “in God’s time.” This past Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent and at my church we talked about the prophecy of hope Jeremiah gave to the Israelites who were in exile after the Jerusalem temple had been destroyed in 587 B.C.  We talked about the hope that Jesus gave the disciples in the face of the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 A.D.  You see as we face the uncertainties of our day, wondering where the violence is going to strike next both home and abroad, we face those uncertainties knowing that this is nothing new.  You see evil has existed in the world throughout time.  What the Israelites faced in 587 B.C. and what Christians faced in 70 A.D., we face today, in 2015.  The assurance we have is that God is present and God redeems.  That is the hope we stand tall in. 

                This week as we move toward the second Sunday of Advent we remember the promise of God to Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist.  When told that he would have a son who would prepare the way for Jesus, Zechariah asked a question that we all ask.  “How Do I know?”  I have asked this question many times myself.  I have heard the question asked repeatedly.  How do we know that it is God’s voice we hear? How do we know that God’s promises are true?  How do we know? 

                Today’s scripture reading in the devotional book A Guide To Prayer for Those Who Seek God, speaks to that question.  Hear the words of the prophet Isaiah:

Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and mu right is disregarded by my God?”  Have you not known?  Have you not heard?  The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.  He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.  Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.  (Isaiah 40:27-31, NRSV)

                What decisions are you facing today?  Are you trying to face them on your own? Are you trying to rush them?  Are you trying to manipulate things and people to bring about the results that you desire?  Are you tired, weak and worn?  When we are facing a question of life, we must wait on the LORD.  When we try to handle it on our own.  When out of our impatience we pick it back up and try to solve it by our own ways, we will surely grow tired, weak and worn.  Yes, waiting is hard…..but doing it ourselves is harder. 

                So take those questions and decisions you have and pray this prayer that is the prayer for the week in A Guide to Prayer…God, in you only do I find the answer to the questions that perplex and confuse me.  Yet I know that in your good time the answer will be made to me.  Give me grace, dear God, to live with my questions until you are pleased to make my way clear.