Advent: Expectant Waiting

My family recently travelled to the island of Maui in Hawaii. We planned an activity popular on the island, watching the sunrise on Haleakala. Haleakala is a dormant volcanic crater and its highest elevation at the summit is over 10,000 ft. To watch the sunrise you have to be prepared to arrive at least two hours before dawn to secure a spot along the railing lining the crater. For us, that meant leaving our hotel at 2:45am in the morning. We traveled up the mountain on treacherously curvy narrow roads and reached the vantage point. There, along with several hundred others, we anxiously waited in the darkness and cold for the sun to rise. And when I say it is cold, I am talking about 30 degrees and windy; it was freezing.
But there in between the shivering to keep warm, God reminded me of a scripture from Psalm 130.

"I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits. And in his word I put my hope.

I wait for the Lord, more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning."

Have you ever been in a dark place in your life where you were desperate for the God of the universe "to show up", to intervene on your behalf? You desire not only for his presence. You need his presence to see the way out.
That is called expectant waiting. Another word for this is advent.

We often hear that word as it pertains to our current season leading up to Christmas. It is a time of 'expectant waiting' in preparation for the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The word literally means, "the arrival of a notable person, thing or event." Waiting for the sun to rise that morning and the precise moment that it would break through the clouds, was in a sense, an literal advent. That is what we were all there to see. And our discomfort, in the darkness, only made us that much more eager.
But the Lord spoke to me a few other truths after I waited in the dark. First, you have to be willing to wait there. Sunrise happens at a precise time every morning. And although faithful and predictable, you cannot rush it. God's timing in our lives is just like the sunrise (Hosea 6:3). It is faithful and always on time, but you have to endure to see it. Had I decided it was too cold or too uncomfortable to wait, and decided to go back to the car, I would have missed the glory of the moment. Sure the sun still would have come up, but the moment and the opportunity, would have passed me by.  The same is true for our season's of difficulty. If you look for an easy way out, you will miss the glory of when God shows up in your circumstances. Those unique moments are critical to your faith. Those moments are the bridge between head knowledge of God and heart knowledge of Him.  Why is this so? Because you can't know him as faithful, until you require faith. You can't know him as provider, until you have experienced lack. You can't know him as healer, until you have battled sickness. And you can't know him as comforter, until you have felt heartache. When we lean on Him during these moments, and more specifically his promises in scripture, and then wait for Him to illuminate our understanding, He also enlightens our hearts to know Him more. When we believe his promises, despite our circumstances, it is credited to us as righteousness. (Romans 4:5, James 2:23)

God's word promises that when you endure, He will breakthrough. So if you find yourself this Christmas in a season of literal advent, hang on to God and his promises. He will appear. And just like the sunrise that morning among the clouds, it will be glorious.

Haleakala Sunrise November 2018

" Then your light will break through like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear. Then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help and He will say: Here am I. " -Isaiah 58