Hi everyone,

So I’ll have to admit, I already did a little Black Friday shopping. I bought a couple things online that are making their way from Australia as we speak. And while they’re just regular, every-day things, really nothing special (just crazy good deals), I’m kind of excited to get them.

I have a tracking app on my phone that tells me when the stuff is coming. And after I made the order (and had to deal with customer service for some mishap), I waited a day and a bit for the tracking info to update. Again, this is coming from Australia, and the first update said that my stuff will arrive today. Not “today” as the day I’m writing this (or even the day you’re reading it), but “today” as in the day that I saw that tracking info… which was like the day after I ordered it. From Australia.

Needless to say, it didn’t come that day. Nor did it come any day since, and I ordered it about 7 days ago. So I guess we’ll see when it gets here, as this tracking app seems useless. But in the end, I do trust that it will come. Just in the meantime I’ll have to practice my patience.

Here are the readings for next week:
Isaiah 2:1-5
Psalm 122
Romans 13:11-14
Matthew 24:36-44
And a video of these readings being read:

Now, I should say that the point of me sharing my shipping woes wasn’t to compare Jesus to the backpack I ordered, but rather that waiting can sometimes be difficult. Depending on what we’re waiting for, we might feel different levels of anxiety, we might try to interpret different signs (or tracking apps) in ways to support our assumptions, or we might act uncharacteristically as we try to cope with our waiting.

Like pacing back and forth. Like falling into bad habits and nervous ticks. Or focusing on nothing but whatever it is that we’re waiting for.

We’re entering into the season of Advent, which is about waiting, yes… but not in an impatient kind of way. Jesus says very specifically that we don’t know the day or the hour (while we do have our Christmas services times and dates locked in). But what this season is about… is hope.

Hope in the lessons of grace. Hope in the love of community. Hope in knowing that God is with us in the present, here and now.

So we can look forward to God’s promises, there is nothing wrong with that. But we needn’t be impatient. We needn’t have our calendars marked. We needn’t find ways to cope with waiting, because we can rest assured that God is faithful and just, and will be with us through all that we go through.

And there is hope in that. That even when things go awry, when things are stressful, when things don’t go our way, we can trust and hope that we aren’t alone, we’ll get through this, and we continue to be filled with the love and support of God through our community, through the gifts and blessings of life, and through the teachings of Jesus.

All thanks and praise be to God! Have a great week, everyone!