learning to wait, morning coffee, and the grand canyon

Hasn't this year felt like one loooong waiting game?

Waiting for stores to re-open.

Waiting for sports to start playing again.

Waiting for the election to be over...(maybe this one was just me but I was SOOO sick of all the garbage commercials on my TV, ads in my mailbox, unsolicited calls and texts to my phone, to just STOP!)

Waiting for your favorite restaurant to re-open (and praying it ever will).

Waiting to go back to school.

Waiting to go back to work.

Waiting to go back to church.

Waiting for life to just be what it was a year ago.

You could say that this whole year has essentially been one long Advent season. The Latin term Advent means "coming"...so whatever it is (in our case during the Christmas season it's Jesus Christ) hasn't arrived yet...and we are waiting. Just like all the waiting we've done in 2020. Whether we want it to or not, the waiting will surely continue into 2021. Let's just be real for a moment, changing the calendar will not magically make this all go away.

In all of this waiting, we basically have 2 reactionary options. Be anxious and wish away time. Or...We sit in this moment and reflect on how God has used waiting as a means of sanctification. The first gives us a false sense that we are in control, where the latter can bring peace from knowing that God is in control.

One thing that has dramatically impacted my faith over the past year and a half is Biblical literacy. What I mean is that I am actually opening my Bible and reading God's Word. I have always had a strong faith, but when life got a little shaky...I had no Words (with a capital W, meaning God's written Words from the Bible) locked in my memory to pull from. No stories of God's sovereignty and mercy to pull me out of my current trial. That is a problem. Because if we don't have God's Word then we rely on our own.

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. Colossians 3:2

If I am carrying my morning cup of coffee to the kitchen table and my toddler bumps into me, coffee presumably spills out of my cup onto the floor. Why did the coffee spill? Because my toddler bumped into me...Nope. Coffee is now in a puddle on my kitchen floor because coffee was in my cup. If there had been juice in the cup, juice would have spilled out. Whatever is in your cup when life around you gets chaotic, confusing, and becomes hard to imagine what tomorrow will look like...whatever is in your cup during those moments will spill out.

So it leads us to ask...what are we filling up with? TV shows? Movies? Newsfeeds? Podcasts? While none of these listed are inherently bad we cannot ignore the fact that the culture we surround ourselves with influences the choices we make every day. It influences how we react to stress...and Lord knows we've all had our fill of stress over the last year.

Imagine if we chose to fill ourselves with the Word of God and His wisdom poured out of our hearts and rolled off our tongue?

Her mouth speaks wisdom, and loving instruction is on her tongue. Proverbs 31:26

I have definitely had moments of worry and doubt over the past year but the more I read and try to understand my Bible the more I cannot help but see parallels from our Christian past that give me hope.

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Abraham and Sarah

You may have sung the song when you were young..."Father Abraham had seven sons, seven sons had father Abraham..." Near the beginning of Genesis, it seemed as though Abraham would never have children. The story from Genesis 15 explains how the Lord told Abraham that his descendants would number the stars. Abe and Sarah couldn't help but doubt this because they were both elderly at this point. How could she conceive a child when she was in her 90's??

In the very next chapter, we read that the couple had given up on Sarah ever conceiving a child. Knowing that Abraham was supposed to have children to fulfill the Lord's promise, they took matters into their own hands (sound familiar???) Sarah told Abe to conceive a child with her slave Hagar. But this was not God's plan for the couple. The covenant would not be fulfilled through this child.

Later in chapter 18, the Lord makes a promise that Sarah will have a child and Sarah laughs at the thought! But the Lord replies...

Is anything impossible for the Lord? Genesis 18:14

Mic drop.

God did what he promised and she did have a child even though she was in her 90's. They waited, however imperfectly, yet still, God provided.

God's Promise to Abraham

In the promise God made to Abraham...

Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. Genesis 18:18

The Lord was predicting the coming of Christ through Abraham's linage. However, it would take 42 generations for that promise to be fulfilled...42 generations before Christ would be born (Matthew 1). Can you imagine waiting that long??? And God's people did not do this waiting perfectly. They doubted. They turned away. They were anxious. They were at times angry. Yet the Lord never forgot his promise.

Fortunately for us, we have this redemption story to look back on. We can see evidence of God keeping His promises over and over again in scripture. The Old Testament followers did not have this privilege. Imagine how hard it would be to continue to hope generation after generation for a promise from a God that you could not see or touch?

Zechariah and Elizabth

In this story from Luke 1, we see another couple being told they would bear a son. Zechariah was told by the angel Gabriel that his wife Elizabeth would become pregnant. Again, they were both advanced in age. Zechariah questioned the promise and because of his distrust, Gabriel told him he would not be able to speak until the baby was born! What a way to prove the Lord's power!

Now listen. You will become silent and unable to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time. Luke 1:20

The words that jump off the page at me and straight to my heart from that passage are in their proper time.

If I can be so bold as to say that I think we experience some of this today in our own lives. When life isn't moving at the pace we would like it to and we try to force what we want to happen (similar to what Abraham and Sarah did). Or we sit and sulk in what we thought should have happened. We are so quick to forget that our time does not match the Lord's time.

Dear friends, don’t overlook this one fact: With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:8-9

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If we believe in Christ then we believe in the Bible. It is more than just a story, it is a book filled with our history. It is not a retelling of perfect people following all the rules and doing life perfectly. In fact, there is only one man in the Book that did do everything right. It is full of imperfect humans trying to do life the way God tells us it works best...love one another and love our God.

Until we open up our Bibles, we will not be able to see that the people there, are just like you and me. We can see that they made the same mistakes that we are making. We can learn about God's grace and mercy and the peace He can bring into our lives if we choose to follow Him and trust in His plan.

Until we open up our Bibles, we will not have the Words to calm the voices from the world telling us to fear what is up ahead or to long for what we left behind. I encourage you to open up your Bibles more, not just on Sunday morning. Read full chapters in context with the short snippets read during Sunday service. Get the full story for yourself. It might be hard at first but I promise it will be worth it.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates. Deuteronomy 6:5-9

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One place my husband and I vow to travel with our family to someday is the Grand Canyon. We love a good outdoor adventure and what better place to see the Lord's beautiful creation than a mile below the surface to stand in awe of His handy work.

There is a phenomenon that happens when you are in the canyon at night called the rim affect. At night, because you are so deep into the earth, when you look at the stars they shine so brightly that they seem to be right in arms reach. In the canyon, the world around you is so incredibly dark that the stars shine so much brighter than they would when you are out of the canyon. This is because out of the canyon there is ambient light around you, dulling the brilliant light of the stars.

When you are deep in the canyon, the towering walls tell a story. Hurricanes, floods, volcanic eruptions, drought...disaster after disaster can be seen in layers on the walls. While descending into the canyon we can read this disaster story, but upon arrival at the bottom, we can choose to fix our eyes on the destruction around us or turn our eyes to the stars.

When the world around us is so dark, the promise of God shines like the brightest star. My friends, we are deep in the canyon! Advent, the coming of Christ our Savior, the waiting for redemption...that is our bright star in this dark and broken world. I pray that you remember that this is not our home and the troubles of the world pale in comparison to the Advent we are in...waiting for Jesus to come again.

Remember, I do not have this. And neither do you.

But, God does. Go to Him.

Merry Christmas everyone!