Worth the wait

Well, the race is on.

The trees are up, the lights are up, our neighborhood is lit up! This either makes you excited or gives you extreme anxiety.  (The only people excited are the ones with the trees and lights up!)

It’s not even DECEMBER!!

I’m beginning to think people have trees pre-lit already up, under a blanket in the closet while they’re eating turkey on Thanksgiving.  Then when the meal is done and people are still cleaning up, the tree comes out.  I picture it like this, “Honey, while I’m doing the dishes, get the tree out so we are the first family on the block”.   This reminds me of the movie about the family that decided to boycott Christmas one year and the neighborhood goes crazy.  So funny!

Someone asked me today if all my Christmas shopping was done.  IT’S NOVEMBER 29^th!!  This made me wonder, “when is everyone shopping”?  Is there some secret all night shopping society I don’t know about? 

At our church, things are slow.  We celebrate Advent.  It is a time for waiting.  As a kid, I was bored with waiting.  I wanted Christmas carols every Sunday and I wanted Jesus to hurry up so Santa could visit!  

But now, I get the idea behind this waiting thing.  It’s good to wait.  It’s good to prepare.  We don’t need to rush.  We don’t need to hurry.  It’s good practice to wait.  Because the truth is, we don’t get things in life when we want them.  We have our time and then there’s God’s time.  And we learn as we get older that He always has better timing. 

We can rush the tree, the gifts, the lights, the carols, but it doesn’t make Christmas come any sooner. We cannot rush the birth of Christ. 

God, in His infinite wisdom gave us a period of waiting…a period of anticipation, expectation and hope.  Relishing that time makes the birth of Christ so much more rewarding.  When he comes, we are ready…like a mother that has waited 9 months for the birth of her child or a couple that has been waiting years to adopt a child or a married couple that has been engaged for a long period of time.  We find out again that it has been worth the wait.

What can we do during this time of anticipation?  Be still, pray, ponder, enjoy, laugh, share, untangle the lights, watch Christmas Vacation, (then watch A Christmas Story), visit, give, prepare…Jesus is coming.   We know He’s worth it…we can wait.