December, 2011
Dear Friends,
Greg Glover, Pastor of Southminster Presbyterian Church, recently
led an Advent workshop for pastors in our presbytery. The title of
the workshop was “Advent Wait Training.” Greg suggested that even
though “waiting conjures painful images of useless wastes of time:
waiting in line, anxiously awaiting news in a hospital waiting room,
waiting in traffic for a light to change,” waiting may actually be
good for us. He asks, “what if waiting is as crucial to our
spiritual health as resistance training is to an astronaut who
spends extended time in a weightless environment?
We may wish to escape the gravity that is constantly tugging at us,
but are we better off in an instantaneous world? “ In order for all
of us to consider how we may be called to waiting as a kind of
spiritual discipline or a special kind of training during the season
of Advent, Greg has created a website that provides a “Spiritual
Resistance Training Program” for Advent. While the study is for
small groups, I think it could also be useful as a personal devotion
guide. The website is: www.adventwait.com. The first week’s lesson
begins with this idea: “Our deepest longings and desires are a
God-shaped void that can only be filled by our Creator.
Our culture would lead us to believe that we can find fulfillment
elsewhere, and without delay, but such fulfillment is artificial.
Advent waiting with other people of faith helps us to resist all
substitutes that are not God and therefore cannot fulfill us.”
Even if you don’t have an opportunity to
study the lessons at adventwait.com, I encourage you to consider in
what ways all the busy-ness in our lives prevents us from slowing
down long enough to allow God to fill us. Consider how all of us
want to fix any problem quickly, often taking matters into our own
hands rather than waiting for God’s guidance. Consider how, when we
do actually wait for God, we are often pleasantly surprised by the
form God’s answer takes! Advent is a season of waiting and
preparation, but we often miss it because preparing for the
Christmas holiday is about “doing” a long list of things instead of
waiting to see what God has done and will do. So this Advent season,
make it a priority to slow down and wait. Wait for something. Wait
for someone. And begin to open your heart and your life to the
practice of waiting for the God who reveals himself through the
surprising gift of his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
In Christ,
Pastor Kim
