The Waiting

The waiting is the hardest part; Every day take one more card; You take it on faith, you take it to the heart; The waiting is the hardest part.

In December, the media always does a retrospective on those famous people who have passed away over the course of the year.  Of all the celebrities who are now no longer with us, the one I’ll probably miss most is Tom Petty, the author of so many anthems of my youth.  And, for me, no truer words were spoken than those above from his classic, “The Waiting.” It is the hardest part, at least for me.

I like to keep moving. Waiting, preparing, is not second nature to me- or third, or fourth. I need Advent, because it reminds me again and again that life is not always about running around. It’s often about preparing our hearts and minds as we actively wait upon the Lord.

Many of you are probably like me. You don’t like to sit still. You don’t like to wait. It not only seems boring; it seems wasteful. Henri Nouwen noted that, for many people, waiting is an awful desert between where they are and where they want to go. They don’t like it, he says, because they are fearful. Fearful of inner feelings, of other people, or of what the future might hold. So, they flee it by running away, or they aggressively strike first before something harmful is done to them.

But, preparation and waiting is a huge part of who we are called to be as Christians. In the Christmas story, we see a cast of characters waiting: Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary, Simeon and Anna, all representing the people of Israel, waiting and yearning for the birth of her Savior. And, every year, during this season, we are called to wait, as well. Slow down. Stop for a minute. And wait.

Waiting, preparing for the coming of the Lord, is not a passive process. Waiting and preparing is active. As Nouwen said, it is trusting in a promise, a promise that acts as a seed that begins to grow.  It is believing that this is the most important moment and that a greater moment is coming.  It is searching our hearts for unconfessed sin that may be hindering our prayers. It is seeking out broken or damaged, unreconciled relationships, striking out to restore them, in obedience to the exhortation that, “as much as it depends upon you, be at peace with all people.” (Rom. 12:18). It is reflecting on all that has come from the Hand of the Giver of all good things, and being grateful. It is a contemplation of the state of our own hearts, and of our own desperate need of a Savior.

I’m reading a great devotional from Dietrich Bonhoeffer during Advent this year. He says those who don’t know how to wait are deprived. Those who don’t know how it feels to struggle with life’s deepest questions, and to patiently look forward to the day truth is revealed, can’t even dream of the beauty that moment of clarity will bring. Bonhoeffer says those who want to win the friendship and love of someone else, but who don’t expectantly open their soul to another and wait until love and friendship come, will never enjoy the blessing of one life, with two intertwined souls. “For the greatest, most profound, tenderest things in the world, we must wait. It happens not here in a storm but according to the divine laws of sprouting, growing, and becoming.”

Waiting and preparing is the most urgent and exciting thing we have to do right now: watching as, on the edge of the horizon, toward Bethlehem, a dim light grows ever brighter…