December 22nd Advent day 26

Three more sleeps!  Boys are starting to get very excited and are asking what they are getting ( even though they pretty much know already)  Josh tried to do a deal today.  'If I give you one of your presents early can I have one of mine early ?'   Can't blame a boy for trying !   

Waiting.  We are all rubbish at it.  Why is that?  Why is it SO hard to wait for something?
The children are finding it hard to wait for Christmas.  They cant make it come any more quickly but they seem to think that by asking five hundred times a day ' Mummy, how many days?/ how many sleeps?/how many hours?/ how many doors on the advent calendar?.......'   that somehow it will speed its arrival.   Most adults I know don't get too excited about Christmas, but we get fractious about other things.  The very worst time I remember having to wait, was for the ten day late arrival of all three of my children.   When you have been pregnant for ten months and you know there is a fully formed person in there all ready to come out, every minute that you go past your due date is utter agony.   You know it is going to happen.  You aren't sure when.  And the waiting is just excruciating.  Your whole focus, every minute of every day, is on the arrival of this long awaited person.

Israel was like this before the birth of Jesus.  Pregnant. Waiting. Expectant.

Come thou long expected Jesus  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoye-iqMylw&feature=related

Its a bit like that when we are waiting for answers too.   Waiting for God to do something.  To shift our circumstances.  To heal the sickness.  To solve the problem.  To save our friend or family member.  We find patience almost impossible.  Because we know the end we desire, the  ' right' outcome.  We know what God ' ought' to be doing and we find it hard to understand when He doesn't do what we want when we want it to be done.  NOW!!

But if the Christmas story tell us anything it is that God does not colour within the lines.  He is unexpected, unpredictable and downright odd sometimes.  I mean who would have thought that the Saviour of the world was going to have the start in life that Jesus had??   Not the answer to the prayers of the people of Israel that they were expecting.  Not by a long chalk.

So how can we trust a God like this?  A God who doesn't always answer in the way we desire in the timeframe we expect?  Who makes us wait when we think we can't wait.   Who sometimes doesn't heal when we have begged and pleaded.  Who is unfathomable and never seems to be in a hurry.   Well, its hard.  Trusting always is.   But by experience ( our own and that of others) we learn about His character as we go along.  We look back and see the threads that He has been weaving in the times when nothing seemed to be happening.  And His word assures us that He is entirely trustworthy and that the learning to wait is all part of the plan to bless us and grow us up.