In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis the Pevenzie children undertake a harrowing sail into darkness –“smooth, solid blackness.”  The hungering dark sapped hope, flooding hearts with fear.  There was no future, no escape — only the haunting dark.  But as hope drained into despair there came a sign — an albatross.  “It circled three times round the mast… and called out in a strong sweet voice what seemed to be words; though no one understood them… except Lucy.  Lucy knew that as it circled the mast it had whispered to her, ‘Courage dear heart,’ and the voice, she felt sure, was Aslan’s and with the voice a delicious smell breathed in her face.”

Each year at the darkest time of the year Advent comes reminding us that ancient promises and enigmatic prophecies really do come true. God’s timing may challenge our credulity – we may have to wait.  But “take courage dear heart”: the darkness Adam and Eve’s sin dragged into this world will be undone.

It may take time.  Dark centuries may come and go.  Lives may be riddled with terrorism and violence.  But prophets like Isaiah and Zephaniah keep reminding God’s people that though warfare, financial downturns, disappointments, loss, and oppression seem to be our reality, “the Lord your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory” over all these things. Watch and wait for the Advent.

Advent Past, Present, and Future

From our vantage point in history we know the prophecies did come true.  In the fullness of time, in a small backwater town occupied by hostile Roman forces the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace was pushed through the birth canal of Mary.   It was the Advent of God with us – Emmanuel.  God with skin on.

But the Advent of Emmanuel isn’t the only Advent.   Zephaniah paints an astonishing picture of another future and another Advent. “Sing O daughter of Zion… Be glad and rejoice with all your heart….  The Lord, the King of Israel is with you; never again will you fear any harm….  The Lord your God is with you.  He is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love.  He will rejoice over you with singing.” (3. 14-17)

Really?  There is a time coming when we “fear no harm?”  A day when God is actually rejoicing over us with singing?   It sounds about as likely as being struck by lightning – unless you look back and remember the baby in the manger.

The Practice of Remembering

Remembering is such a central part of our faith journey that God reminds us scores of times to remember.   And the Holy Spirit uses memory to help God’s redemption story come alive to us.   We are to remember God’s track record so that in the darkness we can hope.

How we remember what God has done opens us up or closes us down to the “impossible.”  Zephaniah’s words about the advent of a New Jerusalem can seem unlikely – but the impossible has happened before.  This gives us reason to hope and trust that a new world order, where God’s delight in us is as palpable as the air we breathe, is on the way to us.  It is coming even now.

So how are you remembering that God’s plan is bigger than any darkness you face? How is the memory of God’s goodness and delight in you providing healing passage into the future? Moses taught Israel to sing songs that helped them remember.  They sang of how the angel of death passed right over them and how they had experienced God as a warrior in their midst. Their Exodus Song resounds with the personal pronouns.   “I will sing unto the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and rider thrown into the sea.” The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.  He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God and I will exalt him. (Exodus 15. 1-2)   Through songs of remembrance, Israel remembered how God came to their rescue in the darkness of slavery.  And they sang with delight.

And it’s not just God’s people who sing to him.  God sings over us with delight as well. Advent is a season where we remember the sacred duet between God and his people – the duet of delight.  Remembering God’s story in your life is the antidote to dark memories that metastasize like cancer.  God’s story is a bigger, sweeter story than any story ever told.  And we are part of it.  Remember.

As you make out shopping lists and are drawn into the season of busy cheer, name the many ways in which God’s goodness is evident in your life. Retell your story of God to those you love.  Recount God’s presence with you.  Let your life be shaped, not by darkness, but by the Great Delight.

Fruits Worthy of Repentance

But remembering and savoring God’s goodness to us personally is not enough. In this week’s Gospel, John the Baptist calls us to kingdom living in the present even as we remember God’s gifts to us in the past.   Through practices of repentance, fairness, integrity, generosity, and contentment we prepare the way for Christ’s Second Advent—his future coming in glory—even as we find ways to open to the reality of the kingdom of God among us now. This requires its own kind of courage. While we wait for the fullest expression of Christ’s kingdom at a later time, we can be those who ease Christ’s coming into our world now through concrete action in our personal lives, our neighborhoods and communities.

The practice of remembering God’s bigger story changes everything about our own inner orientation.  The practice of living in ways consistent with the values of God’s kingdom makes us all prophets who prepare the way of the Lord, not just through our words and prayers but through our actions.

And all the while we live in the truth that the Lord our God is with us.  He is mighty to save.  He is taking great delight in us. He is quieting us with his love.  He is rejoicing over us with singing.

Lord of Light, help us remember that you come.
You come singing over us.
You come laughing and crying over us.
You come day after day, hour after hour, year after year.
Help us not forget that you came.  You come.  You are coming.
Day after day, hour after hour and year after year.

During this Advent season hone our minds to redemption’s story.
In the darkness of this world open our eyes to Your light.
In the wee hours of this year, crowd our memory with gratitude.
Let us number Your goodnesses, Emmanuel, even as we number our days.
In the name of the God who comes; Father, Son and Spirit.

Amen.

©Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, 2012.

What action is God inviting you to take this Advent as you remember that God’s plan is bigger than any darkness you face in leadership?

Leave a comment below and join the conversation.

Read more: Advent Week 3: A Time for Courage

“If we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” – Romans 8:25

Read more: Learning to wait with Jesus

“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!”—Isaiah 64:1

Waiting is one of God’s immensely sweeping invitations. To wait expectantly and with open hands requires a relinquishment of control that gets at the roots of our motivations, fears and idols. It is where we learn that God isn’t a genie; and happiness is not a matter of God meeting our expectations. While we wait, we sense the naked vulnerability of trust. No matter how disciplined, organized and prayerful we get, we never outgrow God’s invitation to wait. The learning curve is life long.

You would think with years to practice we would get the hang of it. But many of us would rather get our teeth drilled than wait. Advent is the season to keep learning and practicing this discipline that is challenging for us all. It is an opportunity to see the good fruit waiting can produce in our lives.

Unearthing What is in Our Hearts

Years ago when people communicated by snail mail, I was waiting for what only can be called a “love letter.” Every day I would go into the front hall to pick through the assortment of bills, cards, advertisements and letters the mail carrier brought. Did I mention that I did this every day? Day after day? Each passing day it became harder to wait. My heart did flip flops. My stomach ached.

One day as I flipped through the stack of mail, I hit a bonanza. I had seven letters from dear friends on various parts of the globe! But rather than being elated, I was increasingly disappointed as I saw each return address. Throwing the letters on the floor, I knew my expectation was turning the good moment that had been given to me into a bad moment. But I did it anyway.

Waiting unearths what is really in our heart. It exposes what happens when our expectations go unmet. When my husband, Doug, was out of work for a year, when our house didn’t sell for a year, when we moved to Chicago leaving our sixteen year old son with a car and credit card to finish his junior year… each second seemed a life time of waiting. But the waiting did something. It exposed a control streak a mile wide as well as a begrudging heart. I rue all the good moments I morphed into bad ones as I clung to my demands of what God ought to do.

Growing in Discernment

Waiting is a central, unchangeable, universal fact of life. The homeless are waiting for somewhere to go. Refugees are waiting to return home. Tracts of humanity wait for lasting peace or rain or medical resources or disaster relief teams. Children wait for birthdays. The elderly wait for their savings to run out. Commuters wait in traffic. Wait. Wait. Wait some more.

Many of us get so frustrated with waiting that we’d rather make a quick decision and pick up the pieces later than hang around in limbo and wait for clarity to come. Doing “something” feels so much better than doing nothing. But waiting is not doing “nothing.” And doing something is not always better than waiting!

When an autistic child reacts in a hysterical manner, the most important thing for the teacher to do is to just stand there, still and waiting. The teacher is not to do something; she or he is not to step in. It is best for the teacher to wait and watch for what is really going on. By contemplating the child, the teacher may become aware of what precipitated the crisis. Rushing in to fix things too quickly distorts the pattern and perspective in the moment. Acting actually blurs a teacher’s discernment. Clarity comes through patient waiting in the now.

Waiting Produces Patience

Patience is a characteristic of God and a fruit of His Spirit. You would think we would want it as much as we want love, joy, and peace, which are better known fruits of the Spirit. But I don’t. I resist the particular conditions required to grow the fruit of patience. It’s embarrassing how often I beg God to “do something” so I don’t have to wait and let patience grow. As Henri Nouwen writes, “Impatient people are always expecting the real thing to happen somewhere else and therefore want to go elsewhere. ”

It is some comfort that my all too human plea for God to “do something” is found in the mouths of countless others in Scripture, including those who speak in the passages from the first week of Advent. Isaiah cries out, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence—as when fire kindles and brushwood and fire causes water to boil!” (Isaiah 64:1, 2) And the Psalmist pleads, “Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel…Stir up your might, and come to save us! Restore us, O God, let your face shine that we might be saved.” (Psalm 80:1-3)

The Holy One could vindicate his presence. He could answer us at once and then we wouldn’t have to wait. So why doesn’t He? Perhaps because the growth and development of patience in our lives is more important to him than we realize!

Crucible of Transformation

One of the main reasons God doesn’t always answer us immediately is that waiting is God’s crucible of transformation. Waiting is how God gets at the idols of our heart. Waiting addresses the things we think we need besides God to be content: money, comfort, expedience, success or control. It creates space to learn more about who God is, to receive his purposes into our lives, to move past our resistance and say our deepest yes to him.

The season of Advent is full of people waiting everywhere. Elizabeth is waiting for a baby. Zechariah is waiting to speak. Simeon is waiting to see the salvation of Israel. Anna is waiting on God’s promise. Israel is waiting for God’s promised prophet to come. Mary is betrothed and waiting to get married.

Then, after years of waiting, in one breathtaking moment an angel greets Mary, and says, “Greetings, you are highly favored!” And when Mary hears God’s plan for her, she responds to God’s invitation with “I am the Lord’s servant…May your word to me be fulfilled.” Her “yes” brings God to us in person – in Jesus. All that waiting had a purpose!

In that moment human ears hear what the human soul has been longing to hear throughout the ages. God has kept his promise. The woman and her offspring—young and innocent, without a scrap of worldly power—are here. Through them the forces of evil in our world will be defeated! They are our guarantee that waiting is worth the while. God hasn’t forgotten us. He is faithful. The Holy One comes through. In Jesus all God’s promises are “yes!”

Speak to Your Heart

So, too, our waiting has a purpose. Every moment of every day is meant to lead us out of the darkness of self and into the light of LOVE. Waiting makes us look like Jesus. It can produce purification, character and the listening wisdom that brings discernment.

Waiting doesn’t mean you are doing something wrong. It doesn’t mean God hasn’t heard you. It is not a waste of time. God is at work making you into a person with the character and integrity you need in order to participate in his dream for this world. You are in a moment where you can develop a discerning heart, contemplating evidence of the unseen hand of God and growing in trust.

So speak to your heart this Advent season. Say as the Psalmist did, “Patiently wait for God alone, my soul! For he is the one who gives me confidence.” (Ps. 62.5) As we wait expectantly and with open hearts, the Holy Spirit gets at us and gives us grace—grace to wait and to see when God answers our prayers, not if.

© 2014. Adapted from Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Invitations from God, InterVarsity Press, 2011.

Receive a digital version of Advent Reflections: Revive Restore Reveal when you make a donation. Make a gift of $50 or more and your donation will be matched up to $50,000 when you give before December 31.

How has God used waiting in your own life to bring clarity needed for true discernment? Where are you waiting on God this Advent season?

Read more: Advent – An Invitation to Wait on God

In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis the Pevenzie children undertake a harrowing sail into darkness –“smooth, solid blackness.”  The hungering dark sapped hope, flooding hearts with fear.  There was no future, no escape only the haunting dark.  But as hope drained into despair there came a sign—an albatross.  “It circled three times round the mast… and called out in a strong sweet voice what seemed to be words; though no one understood them… except Lucy.  Lucy knew that as it circled the mast it had whispered to her, ‘Courage dear heart,’ and the voice, she felt sure, was Aslan’s and with the voice a delicious smell breathed in her face.”

Each year at the darkest time of the year Advent comes reminding us that ancient promises and enigmatic prophecies really do come true. God’s timing may challenge our credulity – we may have to wait.  But “take courage dear heart”: the darkness Adam and Eve’s sin dragged into this world will be undone.

It may take time.  Dark centuries may come and go.  Lives may be riddled with terrorism and violence.  But prophets like Isaiah and Zephaniah keep reminding God’s people that though warfare, financial downturns, disappointments, loss, and oppression seem to be our reality, “the Lord your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory” over all these things. Watch and wait for the Advent.

Advent Past, Present, and Future

From our vantage point in history we know the prophecies did come true.  In the fullness of time, in a small backwater town occupied by hostile Roman forces the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace was pushed through the birth canal of Mary.   It was the Advent of God with us – Emmanuel.  God with skin on.

But the Advent of Emmanuel isn’t the only Advent.   Zephaniah paints an astonishing picture of another future and another Advent. “Sing O daughter of Zion… Be glad and rejoice with all your heart….  The Lord, the King of Israel is with you; never again will you fear any harm….  The Lord your God is with you.  He is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love.  He will rejoice over you with singing.” (3. 14-17)

Really?  There is a time coming when we “fear no harm?”  A day when God is actually rejoicing over us with singing?   It sounds about as likely as being struck by lightning – unless you look back and remember the baby in the manger.

The Practice of Remembering

Remembering is such a central part of our faith journey that God reminds us scores of times to remember.   And the Holy Spirit uses memory to help God’s redemption story come alive to us.   We are to remember God’s track record so that in the darkness we can hope.

How we remember what God has done opens us up or closes us down to the “impossible.”  Zephaniah’s words about the advent of a New Jerusalem can seem unlikely – but the impossible has happened before.  This gives us reason to hope and trust that a new world order, where God’s delight in us is as palpable as the air we breathe, is on the way to us.  It is coming even now.

So how are you remembering that God’s plan is bigger than any darkness you face? How is the memory of God’s goodness and delight in you providing healing passage into the future? Moses taught Israel to sing songs that helped them remember.  They sang of how the angel of death passed right over them and how they had experienced God as a warrior in their midst. Their Exodus Song resounds with the personal pronouns.   “I will sing unto the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and rider thrown into the sea.” The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.  He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God and I will exalt him. (Exodus 15. 1-2)   Through songs of remembrance, Israel remembered how God came to their rescue in the darkness of slavery.  And they sang with delight.

And it’s not just God’s people who sing to him.  God sings over us with delight as well. Advent is a season where we remember the sacred duet between God and his people – the duet of delight.  Remembering God’s story in your life is the antidote to dark memories that metastasize like cancer.  God’s story is a bigger, sweeter story than any story ever told.  And we are part of it.  Remember.

As you make out shopping lists and are drawn into the season of busy cheer, name the many ways in which God’s goodness is evident in your life. Retell your story of God to those you love.  Recount God’s presence with you.  Let your life be shaped, not by darkness, but by the Great Delight.

Fruits Worthy of Repentance

But remembering and savoring God’s goodness to us personally is not enough. In this week’s Gospel, John the Baptist calls us to kingdom living in the present even as we remember God’s gifts to us in the past.   Through practices of repentance, fairness, integrity, generosity, and contentment we prepare the way for Christ’s Second Advent—his future coming in glory—even as we find ways to open to the reality of the kingdom of God among us now. This requires its own kind of courage. While we wait for the fullest expression of Christ’s kingdom at a later time, we can be those who ease Christ’s coming into our world now through concrete action in our personal lives, our neighborhoods and communities.

The practice of remembering God’s bigger story changes everything about our own inner orientation.  The practice of living in ways consistent with the values of God’s kingdom makes us all prophets who prepare the way of the Lord, not just through our words and prayers but through our actions.

And all the while we live in the truth that the Lord our God is with us.  He is mighty to save.  He is taking great delight in us. He is quieting us with his love.  He is rejoicing over us with singing.

Lord of Light, help us remember that you come.
You come singing over us.
You come laughing and crying over us.
You come day after day, hour after hour, year after year.
Help us not forget that you came.  You come.  You are coming.
Day after day, hour after hour and year after year.

During this Advent season hone our minds to redemption’s story.
In the darkness of this world open our eyes to Your light.
In the wee hours of this year, crowd our memory with gratitude.
Let us number Your goodnesses, Emmanuel, even as we number our days.
In the name of the God who comes; Father, Son and Spirit.

Amen.

©Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, 2012.

Rev. Adele Calhoun is co-pastor (with her husband, Doug) of Redeemer Community Church in the Boston area. A trained spiritual director and former missionary, Adele was a founding board member of the Transforming Center and is a faithful teacher among us.  She is the author of two Transforming Resources—The Spiritual Disciplines Handbook and Invitations from God (both InterVarsity Press.)

What action is God inviting you to take this Advent as you remember that God’s plan is bigger than any darkness you face in leadership?

Leave a comment below and/or follow us on Twitter (@transformingcnt) and join the conversation.

Read more: Advent 3: A Time for Courage