GROWING SEEDS: "We Are Waiting"

What Am I Waiting For?

As Advent grew closer and closer this year, I found myself quietly questioning what "Advent" really meant.  I'm embarrassed to tell you that if someone had held a gun to my head and forced me to give a Websters definition of what Advent meant, I probably would have been shot.  I grew up an ADVENTist (Seventh day Adventist)…..how is it possible I didn't know the definition of Advent? 

But as I read and studied up on exactly what Advent is and why we celebrate it, I quickly understood its purpose.  Much like the anticipation I felt when my niece Jacque was a month away from being born and I could hardly contain my excitement as I attended Lamaze classes with my very pregnant and "bigger-than-a-house" sister, Advent is the preparing of our hearts and minds for the arrival of Christ.

Advent brings our minds out of the Christmas craziness of Wal-Mart and back to the sereneness of the manger.  It reminds us "why" we celebrate Christmas.  And its meaning is in the……waiting.  

YES.  The W.A.I.T.I.N.G, just as Mary and Joseph waited for the birth of their Son, the Messiah, we are waiting for His final return.  What we fail to recognize this time of year, amidst the chaos, the Santa Lists and the credit card charges, is that we are right smack in the middle of God's great story.  And chapter 1 of the story didn't start when Jesus was born……it started with Adam and Eve……and the end of the story is still being written.  You and me….we are actual participants in this story….the same story that Mary, Joseph, the Wise Men, the Shepherds and the Angels were…..only they were in earlier chapters of the same story.

Behind all the noise and chaos of this time of year is a story being unfolded……

      right before our eyes…..

     and we are living the story.