Patience & Suffering during Advent
This Advent season, we’re inviting you to participate with us in reading Advent & Christmas: Wisdom from Henri J.M. Nouwen, a daily Advent devotional. This blog series comes alongside Nouwen’s devotionals to offer personal reflections on the daily reading. Today’s post is a companion to Day 2 “The Root of Patience”. Find more resources and follow along with this series at summitdenver.org/Advent.
If you were turn on the television today, every commercial would try to tell you that this time of year should be filled with overflowing joy and happiness. That it is the season to indulge in all of your desires and to get every single thing on your Christmas list.
The problem is, it simply isn’t true, and to believe so is incredibly harmful.
The start to Nouwen’s devotional, Day 2 of this advent season, is counter to this cultural idea. Rather than inviting us to put on a happy face and overindulge, Nouwen brings us to a place where we must acknowledge the importance of waiting, patience, and the suffering that occurs when “what’s to come” is not yet here.
“Rather than inviting us to put on a happy face and overindulge… we must acknowledge the importance of waiting, patience, and the suffering that occurs when “what’s to come” is not yet here.”
I find this introduction to the advent season, with a focus on patience and suffering, such a relief to my weary soul. Because it acknowledges the reality so many are actually facing right now. This year, my heart has been deeply grieved by the pain I have seen all around me. And I feel powerless to the hardships people are facing and I yearn to see healing and restoration to our people and world. Thus, I am so relieved to be invited to acknowledge that all is not as it should be, and to toss aside the propaganda that tells us to put on a happy face and play along.
Sometimes it may feel, in the midst of a pandemic with no end in sight, that it might just be easiest to throw up our hands and do our best to tune it all out; hunker down until it passes. But what we see in these words, “waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life” is an invitation, for precisely times like these, to raise our heads and be expectant for the Lord’s work. It is only from this place that we can truly begin to understand the incredible gift we received through the birth of Jesus Christ and prepare our hearts to receive Him this year.
Waiting Patiently in Expectation
March 10th of this year, my husband and I made a large investment into a new business. Two days later everything started to shut down due to the global pandemic. That in and of itself was terrifying, we couldn’t help but think “what did we just do?”.
Nine months later the industry we invested in has been absolutely devasted and there is still no end in sight. And it is almost time for us to make the second half of our investment.
We consider ourselves one of the fortunate ones, that don’t yet have our doors open. But once we take these next steps over the next two months, we’ll also have all our cards on the table and total skin in the game.
There have been many times where we’ve considered cutting our loses and walking away. But the truth is that we firmly believe God has guided us to the decision we made on March 10th when He also knew what would happen on March 12th. But more than that we firmly believe in His promises to always be with us.
Which is why the devotional today speaks so profoundly to my heart. My husband and I are in a season of “waiting patiently in expectation” for what will happen with our business and financial livelihood. This pandemic is and continues to be an absolute hindrance, and yet we cannot shake the feeling that God will make a way. Whether we succeed or fail when our doors officially open, we know He will be there. And for whatever He allows to happen it will be for our good and the benefit of others.
“Whether we succeed or fail when our doors officially open, we know He will be there.”
In addition to our own hardships, my heart feels overwhelmed by all the suffering of others around us. The growing homeless population, small businesses closing left and right, another prayer request for someone recently diagnosed with cancer, a recently widowed mother giving birth to her third child while still grieving the loss of her husband… Never has it felt so intense.
And yet, as the writers of Hebrews declare, “We are confident of better things… for God is not unjust”. What I find most important about the rest of what follows in Hebrews 6, is that as the Christians of this time are called to wait patiently on the promises of God, their patience is not a call to be complacent. But rather it is a call to work, love and service to one another. I love how it is translated in the New Living Translation:
We are confident that you are meant for better things, things that come with salvation. For God is not unjust. He will not forget how hard you have worked for him and how you have shown your love to him by caring for other believers as you still do. Our great desire is that you will keep on loving others as long as life lasts, in order to make certain that what you hope for will come true. Then you will not become spiritually dull and indifferent. Instead, you will follow the example of those who are going to inherit God’s promises because of their faith and endurance.
With that in mind, I believe that in today’s devotional God is saying to us “Eyes up, My Beloved!”. If our head and eyes are down, we are not ready for His coming. But more importantly we would be blind to those around us, whom He has called us to love and serve. And it is clear that the greatest calling of our lives, no matter the circumstances, is to “keep on loving others as long as life lasts”.
So here is my prayer for our church this Advent season, I pray that we would acknowledge the suffering in and around us. That we keep our “eyes up” in patient and hopeful expectation of what the Lord is doing and will do. And as we keep a watchful look around us, He also give us eyes to see the needs of those right in front of us and through the work of the Holy Spirit He give us great courage to serve and sacrifice to meet those needs. And whatever our circumstances that His peace and love overwhelm us and flow through us to a world that so desperately needs Him.
