Courtney Ellis

First things first, if you haven’t signed up to receive the daily Advent devotionals and the blog, now’s the time! Devotionals begin tomorrow.

I am so super excited to bring you words from people like…

Brett McCracken, author of Uncomfortable: The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community, Cara Meredith, author of 5 Ways to Step into Conversations of Color, and Kristen Kludt, author of A Good Way Through: My Journey with God from Disappointment to Hope. 

You’ll also hear from thoughtful folks like…

Nicole Caldwell-Gross, Director for Mission and Community Outreach in the United Methodist Church; Jennifer Klein, author of children’s books Sir Bumble and Princess Pristina; Kristine Aragon-Bruce, pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois; Jeff Given, worship leader at Presbyterian Church of the Master, and many, many more.

In short: it’s going to be awesome, and you won’t want to miss a post. I look forward to learning from these incredible folks right alongside you.

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I am not good at waiting. Anyone with me?

“You like to go fast,” one of my pastor told me when Daryl and I sat in front of him for pre-premarital counseling. Daryl hadn’t yet proposed, much to my dismay, so here we were, sitting in front of two of our pastors, hashing out our disagreements.

“You like to go fast, but fast isn’t always best,” he said, gently. “Sometimes things take time.”

Always a fan of the When Harry Met Sally line, “As soon as I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, I wanted the rest of my life to begin as soon as possible!”, I could not for the life of me understand Daryl’s hesitancy to jump into marriage.

“I know I want to be with you forever,” he’d tell me. “I’m just not ready yet.”

Today that season of waiting is a distant memory, and almost a fond one. I’ve all but forgotten the visceral emotional pain of waiting for the love of my life to tell me I was also the love of his.

Yet God, in his love, in his mercy, in his grace, offers us opportunities to grow in patience because we need it. I probably need it more than most, but you need it, too.

In an age of dings and pings and likes and shares, an age of instant noodles and microwave dinners and Netflix and constant connectedness, striving for patience seems almost quaint.

And yet, around this time each and every year, God invites us to push a pause button on our lives, to still our striving and turn down the noise and look and listen for him.

He is coming again, you know. We will celebrate his coming at Christmas when we remember his birth, but he is coming again in glory, once and for all.

Paul puts it this way, in Romans 8:22-25

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

Creation waits with groaning. We might, too. I’m still working on the “wait for it patiently” part.

But whether we wait well or poorly, patiently or with groaning, he is coming.

Let’s watch together for the light.

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How are you waiting as you prepare for the start of Advent?