(WRITTEN BY SHEILA GAIL LANDGRAF)
So here
we are in the first Sunday of Advent!
We light the first candle that speaks to us of
faith. Great faith often requires
constant waiting. You know right away
that Advent is all about waiting. We are
waiting on so many things!
We are waiting on Christmas to come. We are waiting on answers to numerous
prayers. We are waiting on bad
situations to turn around and become good.
We are waiting on things that we have needed, things that we have hoped
for; many are the things we are waiting for.
Waiting is a strange place to be in a world that
seems to demand instant gratification.
The art of waiting has been lost and buried away in our high-tech, fast
moving world. But as we approach the
candle of faith to wait on the greatest gift of all, that of Christ Our Lord; we
begin to slow down. God helps us to
wait, just as He helped Mary and Joseph in that long ago day when the child was
first expected. We are waiting, like
them, for unseen things, things that we have hoped for but have not yet seen
with our eyes. We are waiting on
evidence of a new day, the day that only Christ can bring to us, and we start
to move slowly, to open our eyes, to look around at who and what we have become
in this life and to lift our hands in hopeful worship for our only hope. As we light the candle of faith, we light the
candle of faith in our hearts. True
faith is not afraid to wait.
True faith does not have to be large to work in
our lives. Start small and watch your
faith, even if only the size of a mustard seed, start to grow. Do that one little thing that God has put in
your heart as you are waiting. See what
God does to make it grow. Mary’s son was
born a child. The wise men had to follow
a star. All things do not happen in an
instant. Wait on God to make the faith
inside of you to grow, but open your heart to do the little things that he is
showing you as you go through this season.
Eventually, if you wait long enough, the baby will show you The Messiah
and the trail of the shining star in the sky will land over Him. You
will know, if you wait with faith in your heart.
There was a long time that the prophets were
silent as they waited on God to provide a Messiah. Standing before the advent wreath and lighting
the candle of faith reminds us of that time.
We are not only waiting in faith that opens our eyes; we are also
waiting in silence that opens our ears to the Words and the promises of God. Quietly we take the time to reflect on God’s
timing and that it is not like ours. We
know God will break through our silence with the sound of a baby’s cry and we
will consider it the sound of sheer joy!
It is much like the sound of the shofar that announces good news. We wait anxiously to hear its call as we
light the candle of faith and bring the season of Advent into our hearts and
homes.
Advent is all about faith and waiting.
What are
you waiting on God for this year?
