What are you waiting for?

I went to the church where I work, an Anglican church, last weekend.  Sunday marked the first in Advent, and as the Vicar spoke, two of his words jumped out at at me. He spoke of advent as a time of 'active anticipation' in many ways.

As I considered the words, I remembered the scripture from Isaiah 40:31

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings as eagles;
they shall run, and not be weary;
and they shall walk, and not faint.

 The word WAIT here, talks about just an expectation; to look for, to hope for.  It's very active.

Some times we think of 'waiting' as staying put until something comes or happens, but that's only half of the definition.

The online dictionary says that it can also be defined as "to remain in readiness for a purpose".  I really like that.  It makes me think of a runner on the starting block.  They are waiting.. but it's certainly not passive.  Every muscle is ready to go.  The athlete's mind is focussed on one thing and they wait,

It occurred to me, that in the season leading up to Jesus' birth.  Mary wasn't likely to be sitting at home doing nothing..  Like every mother to be, though she was waiting, I am sure she was preparing;  reminding Joseph to make the crib, cleaning, getting ready.  She was actively anticipating the arrival of her son, the Son of God.

As we go into the Advent season, I encourage you to actively anticipate what God has for you in the coming weeks and moving into to 2019.

The word says that God's thoughts towards us are good,  He plans to give us hope and a future!   We can prepare our hearts to receive what He has for us.  We can do this by actively waiting.  Readying ourself (not through self effort to make us worthy, because Christ did that part already).    But stirring up hope and expectation in our our hearts through prayer, reading the word, worship and reminding ourselves of His goodness, and all that He has already done. Mediate on his promises and look forward with active anticipation to a good season and a great start to the new year.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teabags and Popcorn!

Image
So, I was eating popcorn yesterday and drinking a fruit tea and I started wondering what makes a popcorn pop! (As you do). With a little help from Google, I found out that inside the kernel, the hard shell, there is a little bit of moisture and when it heats up inside, it turns to steam and as you keep heating it up, the pressure from the steam builds and builds until it cracks open the hard exterior and makes a yummy snack. And then I thought about my teabag (I do promise there will be a spiritual application to this, not just information on my food and drink habits).  The label had come off the teabag, so I didn't know exactly what flavour it was, until I poured on the boiling water and tasted it! As promised... the spiritual bit!  We are like teabags and popcorn!  This is a deep spiritual truth!  Really it is!  Read on and I'll explain why! Firstly we are like popcorn because when heated up, whatever we stir up inside us will burst out.  We're also like teabags too.  We
Read more

Take it!

Image
This week I have been thinking about the 10 spies that they sent out to view the promised land.  You probably don't remember the names of 8 of them!   The other two were of course Joshua and Caleb.    In the book of Numbers we see that Moses sent out these 10 men off to spy out the land that God had promised them.  They were to check it out and see what kind of place it was, what kind of people lived there and bring back some produce from the land. Well, if you know the story they brought back some figs, pomegranates and a bunch of grapes so big it had to be carried between two men!   It was a good land (no surprise there, seeing as God had told them it was good).  But when they got back 8 of the spies told the people "Well, it's a good land, but the people that live there included giants and all sorts of people that are really strong' I can imagine that all Israel gasped in horror or shock. Each person murmuring to his neighbour about how awful the situation was. In t
Read more

Looking back

Image
This week I was listening to a message and I was reading the verse in Luke 17:32 which simply says " Remember Lot's wife ."   This is a really interesting statement. When Jesus tells us to consider something or remember something we should pay attention. So what do we know about Lot's wife?  Not a lot really.  But what we do know is that an angel of the Lord took her by the hand to lead her out of the city before God destroyed it.  She was told to run for her life and not look back.  According to Genesis 19, she ran but she turned and look back and as a result, turned to a pillar of salt.  This short verse really spoke to me for a number of reasons.    The Apostle Paul tells us " I don’t depend on my own strength to accomplish this; however I do have one compelling focus: I forget all of the past as I fasten my heart to the future instead. "  (Phil 3:13 TPT) Since 2020, it's like we have a new category in history BC now stands for BEFORE COVID! People a
Read more