Reflections on Faith and Community
Dear friends,
On this page, you will find weekly reflections on life and faith. My hope is that, in some way, they will prove helpful to you in your daily living. You can also find them on the church's YouTube Channel in the "Weekly Word" playlist. May God bless you on the spiritual journey.
Andrew S. Odom
Pastor
The Waiting Game
For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. (Psalm 62:1)
On Sunday during the children’s time at the 9:00am service, Liz Rasley played a game with the kids where they passed around a ball of plastic wrap. They each took a turn pulling off one of the sheets of plastic wrap that, slowly but surely, uncovered the baby Jesus. During the unwrapping, kids began getting a little antsy having to wait. Even Liz ended up having to speed it up some due to “lack of time.” It was a perfect example of how we don’t like to wait.
I remember how hard it was to wait for Christmas when I was a child. Everything seemed to take ten times as long as normal. The days seemed to drag on and on… the hours... the minutes even. It felt excruciatingly painful. It is easier to wait for Christmas the older I am, but it is still difficult to wait when I don’t want to do so. When I am running late, everything seems to take longer than normal. The lights stay red longer, the cars seem to move more slowly than usual, and it feels like everything that could happen to slow me down, does happen. I don’t like to wait.
Eugene Peterson once said that busyness is a disease of the spirit and that restlessness is a sign of it. If that is true, and I believe it is, then the waiting game of Advent is the cure. Let us all receive this season of Advent as a lesson in waiting. May our souls wait, not with reluctance, but with expectation. May we all welcome the art of waiting into our lives that Christ might show up in our hearts with the surprise of hope and joy.
Published on 12/11/2018 @ 1:26 PM CDT
