It's all about the waiting

I love Christmas. But the thing I think I love best is the waiting for it, the run-up. The rushing, the busyness, the anticipation, all of the craziness of the season.

In the run-up to Christmas in church we have the season of Advent, which means 'arrival' or 'coming'. It's a time of preparation and waiting that culminates in the celebration of the birth of Christ. But really the birth of Christ is only the beginning of the story; it's not an end in itself. In the song, Mary's Boy Child, we hear that, 'Man will live for evermore because of Christmas day.' But that's not true. It's not Christ's birth that saves us; it's his death on a cross. His whole life is a season of waiting, for his destiny, his ultimate purpose.

I get very impatient with myself when I look at my many flaws. I desperately want to be better - a better person - but each year passes and I see very little change in me. I just see the impatience, lack of tolerance, envy, selfishness, lack of will - not will power but just the will, a wanting to be different that is so strong that I have to do something about it.

So Advent is a timely reminder that I too am waiting and not just for Christmas. I'm still in the stages of preparation. God is still working in me to mould me into the person he made me to be, the person I want to be. And as it is in December bits of it are great while other bits are painful or just plain exhausting and I think I'm never going to get everything ready in time - but it always is. And I will be. In time.

In church this evening the reading included the words, 'Because God delights in you.' Sometimes - most of the time - I find that hard to believe but it's true. Because he sees what I can be, what I could be, what I will be. He sees me through Jesus.

So in these final hours of countdown my prayer for each of us is, that as a new day and a new year begins, we are able to relax into who we are, that we get to know ourselves - and our God if it's your thing - better, and that we find waiting more calming than stressful, more exciting than scary, more fun than fearful.

And I pray that tomorrow is an especially wonderful day for each of you and those you love.