Advent Week 2: Prepare the Way

 

Often enough the waiting season comes on the heels of a hard season, one in which we'd already begun to question the reasons of our own place in life.  There is sometimes a shock when we find ourselves in the waiting zone, but waiting has many purposes.

1.  It's a time for rest.  Our time at synagogue came on the heels of 10 years of intense involvement, work and study within the churches and synagogue.  When John finally agreed to attend church with me, he encouraged us to be active in services, study groups and activities.   We often attended church two or three days a week.  John entered a period of intense creativity and wrote numerous songs, got involved with the worship team at church and became an ordained worship leader for our synagogue.  I started a church newsletter at one church and volunteered for various activities, including church clean up.  John mowed grass.  We planned vacations to fall between church services.

When we eventually left church at God's urging and began to attend synagogue, we were just as active and more so.  Not only did that season prove to be a time of learning as we embraced the Messianic Faith, but we found ourselves involved in feasts and holy days, study groups, worship, and volunteer positions.  All of this in a much smaller congregation so that duties were piled one upon the other as there were fewer people to share responsibilities with.

One of our reasons for taking a sabbatical was that we were tired, run down, and burning out fast. 

When God moved us out of the synagogue, he gave us no further direction.   Suddenly we were free of schedules and volunteer duties and services planned and special.  With our calendar cleared we had nowhere to be and nothing to do.  We prayed and prayed about where God wanted us, but we also soaked in the rest that came after those intense years of work.  

2. It's a time for prayer.  Prayer is a necessary part of waiting.  I've discovered that prayer often leads us to not just question God about His purpose for us, but it leads to self-examination.   It can be both difficult and revealing.  Often, we find there is unforgiveness or a hint of bitterness and we must eradicate those ruinous roots out of our hearts.  Sometimes, we must ask forgiveness.   

3.  It's a time for listening.   Meditation and quiet are necessary in order to listen.  I have learned of late that I am often noisy.  I spend so much time talking to God that He can't make himself heard.   I've begun spending my mornings in total quiet.  Not reading my Bible, or scanning instagram, but simply spending a few minutes at the start of every morning, sitting in my chair, sipping coffee, and watching the sun rise.     I think we instinctively do this in this season of the year.  I hear so many say that they like to get up in the early morning and turn on the tree lights and just sit quietly gazing at the tree.  I'm finding that even without the tree, that quiet space of doing nothing, reading nothing, saying nothing, but of being still is powerful and peace giving.

4.  It's a time for praise.  Once long ago, I was up during one of my late nights of not sleeping.  I gazed at a picture of John and I taken on vacation.  I began to thank God for bringing John into my life and that led me to go further and thank God for many things, and finally to just tell Him how much I loved Him.  In a moment of quiet following that praise I felt in my spirit that God spoke to me, "I love your praise..."   It was a moment I shall never forget...and yet I often do.   Tell God how much you appreciate Him.  Love Him.

5.  It's a time for digging deeper.  After a week or two we found we ourselves seeking out special ministers to listen to daily, we began reading our Bibles in earnest, we followed online studies.   All of this time of waiting wasn't wasted.  We learned and we grew.  We saw more and more clearly that there is a disconnect in what many churches teach, between the old testament and the new.  We began to fine tune our faith.  

Prepare the Way

We may not always know what is ahead of us but some instinct drives us to begin preparations.  It is a given that a new season is ahead.   Is it possible to prepare when you don't know what is ahead?   I say, "Yes."   We need only ask God what we need to do.  And the things we will require for the next part of our journey will begin to come to us.   The right sermons, the right studies, the right teachers, the lessons we need in order to move ahead.  All of them are meant to bring us nearer still to Christ.