I recently came across a blog by Dr. Mark D. Roberts on patheos.com. (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markdroberts/series/introduction-to-advent/). His writing about sharing his “Greatest Advent Discovery” was something I could really relate to.  He talks about his “accidental” discovery of one way to observe Advent that has greatly affected him, and it’s something I want to practice, too. 

Dr. Roberts’s revelation while standing in line at Costco:

“A few years ago I was waiting in a long line at the Costco in Irvine, California.  In spite of my best efforts to find the shortest line, of course, I ended up in the slowest moving line of all.  As I stood there, I could feel my blood pressure rising.  The more I waited, the more frustrated I became.  Words I never say (well, almost never) filled my mind, and I’m not referring to “Happy Holidays.”  “Why do I always get in the slowest …… line?” I asked myself.  “And why is this taking so …… long?” I grumbled under my breath.  Then, all of a sudden, it dawned on me.  I had one of those moments of grace in which God managed to slip a word into my consciousness.  As I stood in that slow-moving line at Costco, I was waiting.  Waiting!  In a way, I was experiencing what Advent is all about.  Of course, I wasn’t waiting for God to save me or anything momentous like that.  I was simply waiting to get out of that store so I could go home.  But, nevertheless, I was waiting.  I was forced to experience something that’s at the very heart of Advent.  So, I decided right then and there in the line at Costco, that I was going to use the experience of waiting in line while Christmas shopping as an Advent reminder.  In that moment, and in similar moments yet to come, I was going to remember what Advent is all about.  I was going to put myself back into the shoes of the Jews who were waiting for a Messiah.  And I was going to remember that I too am waiting for Christ to return.  As I decided to let the experience of forced waiting be a moment of Advent reflection rather than a cause for getting an ulcer, I found my anger quickly drain way.  Waiting in line at Costco became, not a trial to be endured, but a moment of grace.  And get this:  I even found myself thanking God for the chance to slow down a bit and wait.  This was, indeed, a miracle.  By the time I got to check out, my heart was peaceful, even joyous.  I felt as if I had discovered a hidden treasure.”

I look at all the years, decades, centuries of waiting God’s people have experienced.  Of the waiting that is built in to just living life, and how, in our modern culture we have become so unaccustomed to waiting on any and everything.  We live in an age and culture that says, “If you want it, get it.”  And we miss the blessing of waiting.  For in waiting comes trust, time for remembering what God has done, and how He has been faithful not only in all of history but in our own lives.  Waiting is not just something to be endured; it is something that calls us to repentance, change, and expectation of the Messiah.   Isaiah made a call to God’s people to return to Him with their hearts and their lives.  Their worship had become meaningless because their lives did not live out to others (the poor and helpless), the love they professed in their religious rituals.  Isaiah was reminding them that if God was to be in their worship, He must first be in their lives. 

We wait every day - for little things, for big things long prayed for, for the biggest thing yet to come - Christ’s return.  It matters how we wait. We can wait in impatience and frustration (distrust), or we can allow God to break in on us and in our waiting we can examine our own lives, repent where we have turned from Him, convert/change our lives to reflect in our lives the words of our worship by loving others, and live in joyful expectation that He is, indeed, coming again!

—Cindi Latson

Light: The candle of JOY

Read: Daniel and the scary sleepover, JSB p. 152 (Daniel 6)


Ask: Describe a time you followed God even though it was hard.

Pray: Thank God for sending The Rescuer, Jesus into the world. Ask God to rescue the children in Ghana.

Ask for the help to love and obey God whatever the cost.

Jesse Tree Ornament: Lion

Act: Do something you’ve been putting off because it’s “hard” (a chore, a new skill, a conversation…).