Why do we hate waiting? On average we spend 6 months of our lives waiting. Waiting in line, waiting in traffic, it all adds up. However, thanks to high-speed Internet, Amazon Prime, and other innovations that number is decreasing. But we hate waiting more and more, because we expect gratifications to be more and more instant. If a web page takes more then three seconds to load, if our package takes more than two days to arrive, if our GPS doesn’t load instantly, we become frustrated. Anything that is not instant is unacceptable, and this need for instant gratification is spiritually toxic. We expect God to work on our timing and get angry when He doesn’t. He calls us to wait for Him, but we won’t wait for anything, so we can make ourselves miserable. OR… we can hope. Hope is being sure that God will come through, even if we don’t see how. Hope is knowing that God works all things for the good of those who love Him who are called according to His purpose. Hope is patiently trusting that God is a loving Father who cares for us, no matter the present circumstances. And hope is the first step to understanding the Christmas story. Because after thousands of years, the wait would soon be over: the Son of God was arriving.

Reflection:

Psalm 27:14:

Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord.