Dearest Noel

(you have to read this to the music from here - press space bar a few times for it to start)

Music of the sea, come to me

Scent of the stars, carry me

Show me the secrets of this galaxy

The hopes and dreams of smiling things

A child’s laugh at bedtime stories

Softer tales of hard earned glories

Of adventures taken to far off lands

Of things you hold not in your hands

But open your heart to this short story we tell

A tale of hope, of dearest one Noel

Take my hand, hear the words

When manger’s stable held such a birth

And history shook for the day has come

No more waiting, there is the Son

Baby to hold, child to guide

Man at death, God alive

Jesus season, white with snow

Beautiful Savior we can know

Calmer of the sea, who rescued me

Sender of the stars, carry me

Show me the secrets of your galaxy

The hopes and dreams of smaller things

A child’s laugh as he falls to sleep

Soft release of things we cannot keep

Of adventures we’ve yet to take

Of the Lord who makes no mistake

Open my heart to the story you tell

The tale of hope, of our dearest Noel

Merry Christmas

Wait, A Thank You

It is no small coincidence that the first word used to describe love is patience (1 Cor 13). Time is the great enabler of love. At first it binds it, holding it back for its own good that it may grow in wisdom. Slowly, then, it releases it. Like a soft breeze upon the soul, it awakens. Some say it is more like a lightning strike, but not from what I have come to know of God. Slow to anger, slow to speak; so that every glorious movement would not be like a wave crashing, but a wave swelling; climbing in greatness and towering over us. Surely we would be destroyed if it were not a wave made of grace.

(v7) It always protects, as it waits, always trusts, as it rests, always hopes, as it reaches, always perseveres, as it continues. To love properly is to wait longingly.

Thank you Lord that you do.

What Do We Wait For?

Black Friday is ridiculous. I remember a few years ago the temperature flirted around 0 degrees and there were still lines of people outside. They were out there with their tents and sleeping bags for hours, some even days, before the sale began. They were waiting.

It’s amazing what we’ll wait for in a society driven by immediacies. An hour long dinner with family is a stretch, but give us the opportunity to save a few dollars and our time is yours for the taking. We wait for small gains. We build our patience not around character but around benefit. If it will tangibly benefit us, we are willing to linger; but we will make sure people know the sacrifice we are making.

I see waiting as something so much bigger and in this case so much deeper. How do you know if your wait is worth it? Simple, what are you waiting for?
Are you waiting for a thing that is subject to decay and thievery (Matthew 6)? Or are you waiting for the unchanging (Job 23:13), everlasting (Psalm 119:142), deeply satisfying (Ps 145:16)?

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst
Those who are without, those who wait, those who struggle are blessed. They are now and will be then better off because of the pains in their stomachs and the roughness in their throats, because they have tasted wait.
for righteousness,
And they do not wait in vain. They do not wait for emptiness, for foolishness, for the temporary. They wait persistently, heavily and in glorified discontentment with the current state of our world. They wait for righteousness Himself.

for they shall be satisfied (Matt 5:6)

Satisfaction, completion, not just happiness but swelling joy. The race is finished but the prize is unending. The temporary wait has given way to the eternal (2 Cor 4:17) and we who labored in wait shall be glorified.

To wait for waiting’s sake is foolish. To wait for someone is an art. To wait for God is a privilege. His is a hope which will not disappoint (Rom 5:5). But the best news is that we do not wait alone or with empty hands. Christ is the King and Savior now. The Holy Spirit is moving and acting even as you read these last few words. A Christian’s wait is never empty.

Series Of Moments

Waiting does not necessarily imply that the situation in which you wait is unfavorable. Although “desert” seasons are typically what comes to mind when anyone discusses the topic of waiting. But I want to talk quickly about two aspects, one positive the other negative, that have to do with waiting well.

In a season of waiting there can be a general sense of dissatisfaction. Maybe not so much a deep discontentment, but when you think about it hope is what it is because it promises something better. If everything was perfectly fine than what reason is there for hope? Likewise, we wait because something better is promised or hoped for. This is where the Enemy has a prime opportunity to disrupt.

Pleasure is satisfying. Eating your favorite meal or watching a good movie produces a sense of pleasure. Now take a second and examine those scenes a little closer. What goes through your head during those times? For me, it’s usually nothing. Small pleasures like those are so great because they allow us a break from life and give us a chance to recoup. They are momentary distractions. Remember, too much of anything is never good.

We might complain at times about the desert tone of our waiting periods but look at the alternative. If those periods were filled with distraction, small handouts of satisfaction – would we still wait? Pleasure blocks out alternatives and it stresses the immediate over the best. In order to lose a waiting game, you do not have to outright give up; only settle for something else, something quicker and more accessible. If we enjoy every ounce of our waiting phase what is there to rejoice over at the end?

Now, all of that is in contrast to the next point. Waiting is a caution sign for real life. If forces us to slow down and take a deep breath. Learning to really enjoy the moment should be a goal of any waiting season. Hope seems so far off at times and distractions are few and far between. But there is something we all have and every day we are given more: moments. We each get the same amount, but we use them so differently and typically so foolishly. We are hasty with our lives because we want the waits to be over. However, the waits are there precisely that we may enjoy life all the more. While pleasure may be a distraction and turn us away from our wait, enjoying the moment does the opposite. It forces us to really examine our position, to see where we are in relation to others, to our hope, and ultimately to keep us on task. Each moment is a microcosm of our life. We don’t live a life, we take advantage of a series of moments and that becomes our life. Waiting well means taking a good look at the small pictures within the masterpiece we hope to paint.

Patience In Waiting

We see patience as such a small thing. A few minutes, a few hours, perhaps even days; yet the end is always clearly within sight. We encourage with the simplest words “be patient.” For a short while that works and soon enough our goal is met. We rejoice in our exhibition of the virtue of patience.

But this can be a childish understanding because as God sees it patience is no small thing. It is not a battle measured by minutes and hours but in seasons and in years. And the battlefield is most often a desert. If we are to learn how to wait well we must examine He who, though having all power to bring things as they ought to be, waits. It is a patience built of mercy, a wait founded in love. Surely the waiting of God is one of his most lavish gifts of grace and a heavy lesson for us to adhere to. Prayer is at the core of waiting well.

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:8,9

I think patience is an interesting subject to talk about in relation to God. We practice patience most often because we have to, but that is not the case for God. We wait for things to change, for people to grow up, for time to open doors. For God, every option is already in his hands; every possibility, every destination. God chooses patience.

I don’t believe God is wringing his hands together in nervous worry, but I also don’t believe the extreme opposite is accurate either. Sometimes we take the sovereignty of God and unintentionally desensitize him. If he can do anything than there is no real reason for him to feel. But the emotions of God are throughout Scripture. My point is that God does not wait well because he is void of feeling. That is both unwise and impossible for us to follow. I believe God does feel a sense of anticipation. And even though He knows the glorious ending that awaits, He still yearns for it.

Hope is emotional and waiting can be expressive. Don’t feel like you must become a robot in order to become a champion of patience. Wait with all your heart, which literally means wrestle with its storm of emotions, and your patience will never be in vain if the thing you wait upon is Christ.

The Waiting Of God

Advent literally means the coming. The coming of the promise, the hope fulfilled, the sinner’s Savior, Israel’s redemption, the Christ. We joke and laugh and sing, celebrating the season in much the same way as we did the year before. But the idea that has been pressing upon me this Advent is the question of why do celebrate the coming like we do? I know the theological answers, but my question is actually very practical. Our Christmas is annual meaning we get a chance every year to “celebrate” and enjoy whatever it is that has come.

And that is part of the reason we get it wrong.

If there is a coming, then there must have been a time without it, a time of waiting. Think about some of the greatest things we can accomplish in this earthly life: marriage, career, education. All these things require periods of waiting. Before marriage there is singleness, before a career there are odd jobs or unemployment, before completing an education there is usually more education or even useless education (yes there is such a thing, welcome to college). We celebrate these accomplishments in part because of the time and sacrifice it takes for one to reach them.

Or take food for example. A full thanksgiving dinner will always be more satisfying than a drive-thru burger. Why? Because your mother is a better cook, yes. But also because of the anticipation – the scents tempting you hours before the table is set and piles of pies tucked away for after.

We talk about saving ourselves for marriage or not spoiling our appetites by saving our sweets. Waiting does something to us which prepares us for the arrival. To better understand the coming, we must first build our understanding of the waiting.

Who is waiting in the story of Advent? Us. We are waiting for a Savior. Israel, who is waiting for a king. But there’s one more. This has been racking my mind for weeks now and after finals I am going to pour myself into finding the answer. Because my question is, can we understand Pre-Advent as the Waiting of God.
God, who is altogether outside of our world and yet wholly and intricately involved in it, waits for a specific time in history to enter radically his Son Jesus into the story. But the story of Jesus is one of waiting also. The waiting for the promise, the waiting for his birth, the waiting for his maturity, the waiting for him to fulfill his ministry, the waiting for his resurrection, and now the waiting for his return. Each step, more glorious than the last, builds upon this theme of waiting. And it’s from this waiting that I believe we learn two things.

First, how to wait well. If huge portions of the Christian narrative and of the human narrative are characterized by seasons of wait, then this must be a priority in our lives. And second, how to celebrate fully. Anticipation builds celebration, if there is little waiting then there is little celebration. If we see Christmas as purely an annual holiday we miss so much of what it is meant to be. Christmas aims at pointing not only at Christ, but at the long long road which preceded him coming to earth; and the long road forged now as we wait for his return. Christmas is a reminder that we do not wait in vain. 

Chance

Chance is the possibility of possibilities.