In Our Waiting, Comfort and Joy
Okay folks, we’ve had an amazing last few Sundays…
From our rich Thanksgiving service as we honored God by sharing how good He has been to us and also sharing some significant griefs many of us are still walking through in this holiday season…
To last Sunday, when our guest speaker, Brion Burkett, challenged us with the profound question, “What is God’s first choice? What is God’s heart and desire for us? For High Street?”
Watch Sunday’s Sermon by Brion: “God’s First Choice”.
Or listen again to the reflection song from our Thanksgiving service: “Take it to Jesus” by Anna Golden & Kari Jobe.
Wow, this has already been such a sweet holiday season together.
As we enter Advent, I see God moving in significant ways among us. Drawing us to Himself. Preparing us for deeper connection with Him and with His work in our community.
The season of Advent is traditionally a season of waiting. Advent reminds us of the space between manifest joys—the tension that our faith inhabits. We are living between the arrival of Jesus and His second return to rule and reign with us.
Just like being between a Thanksgiving feast and Christmas breakfast, we have a whole host of things that we’re doing, thinking, anticipating, worried about, and needing in this in-between time. And engaging with this “space between events” is where a significant part of our spiritual life is worked out in honest, ordinary living.
What are you waiting for right now?
What things are you in-between?
Where might Jesus be in this moment? What would it be like to notice Him here?
Advent reminds us that God is active in the big moments and in the waiting, now.
We have confidence to talk with God about our struggle in our waiting because, in Advent, we are anchored. On one side, we receive Jesus’ arrival and finished work on the cross, and on the other side we are reoriented toward the hope of His coming again.
Our story is held by God in a tension we can’t get out of. A tension we can trust. A tension we can lean-on.
What would it look like if Jesus appeared now in the midst of your waiting?
Could it be that He’s already here with You, by His Spirit?
When we’re aware that God is with us in our waiting, it can shape us into carriers of His joy and presence. With Jesus, we can actually say, “God rest you merry gentleman (or gentlewoman), let nothing you dismay,” for because of Jesus’ coming and return we now experience “tidings of comfort and joy.”
God rests on us, so instead of despair, and despite division, there’s infinite helpings of comfort and joy available in moments with Him.
What would it be like to bring your unknowns to Him now?
What would happen if you opened just a bit more to His presence and love in this moment?
Even the longing and griefs we face this season can become places of encountering the power and love of God. He’s just looking for hearts softened to Him. He's on the edge of His seat. Ready to meet with you.
“Let every heart prepare Him room,” says Isaac Watts in Joy to the World. In Advent we make room for Him in our minds and homes and in that space, receive our King.
And starting this Sunday we’ll see more fun and surprising connections to Jesus and Christmas Carols as we dive into our new Advent series, The Carols that Made us, beginning with Joy to the World!
Looking forward to Christmastime with you all!
Pastor Dave
PS. I mentioned on Sunday during Equipping Hour, in response to Tim’s question about hearing God’s voice, a resource by George Muller called “How to Ascertain the Will of God”.
Follow the link above to read the brief method of prayer, and click the following link to glance through his book, “Answers to Prayer” where he details and testifies how God answered thousands of prayers in his life and ministry.