Advent Adoration: Week One - The God of Patience

Being that yesterday was the first day of Advent, I lay awake last night thinking about Jesus' First Coming. I thought about how patient our God is. As long as God has existed, He has been waiting.
Though Father, Son, and Holy Spirit lacked nothing in their perfect communion from eternity past, God chose to create. Then through sin everything fell apart; His creation fell far from Him. Thus the journey of bringing everything back together to Himself began. I guess you could say that our story is joined to the greater story - the journey of the patient God.

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“that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him” (Ephesians 1:10 NKJV).

You are the God who waits. You have total power. You are in control, and yet, You wait. Surely You could orchestrate circumstances in Your sovereignty to bring about the conclusion at a faster pace, but yet You choose to restrict or confine Yourself in part to the will of man, those in whom You first breathed the breath of life.
It is one thing for me, finite being, to wait since I never know with clarity what the outcome of my waiting will bring. I wait in faith, and I wait with hope, but my eyes have yet to see. There is mystery in the midst of my waiting. Your waiting is different. You wait with full understanding, full clarity. Nothing is hidden from You. To You even that which is shrouded in the darkness of all that is yet to come is lit up bright as day. We wait in hope - trusting You. You wait in hope - fully knowing and fully trusting in Your own faithfulness.

How must You feel in the midst of this kind of waiting? Who could know the greatest heights of joy and the deepest depths of sorrow in the midst of fully-disclosed expectation but You?

From eternity past, You were the patient God, waiting with eager anticipation for all that You would bring forth.

Day one, "Let there be light." No, it wasn't time yet. You waited.
Day two, "Let there be Heaven," and still You waited.
Day three, "Let there be Earth," almost there.
Day six, "Let Us make man in Our image," You said as Your heart exploded with eternal expectant joy! Finally, God and man together. Heaven and earth at peace, joined as one. No strife.

It was only for a moment, though. Man fell away from You and centuries past...one righteous man, his family, a boat...You waited...Abraham and a covenant that held promises of another Day...centuries past...400 years of Egyptian slavery and finally Sinai-filled with more covenant and promises...century upon century upon century passed until the distance between You and Your people seemed to be near its breaking point with Babylon, exile, and separation from everything that once held promises of redemption from the curse on Adam's race.

Only waiting ensued for You and man for still more centuries - dark centuries of divine silence. With an aching heart You waited alone in the quiet - until one day.

In the dispensation of the fullness of the times, You spoke to a young Jewish girl - mere dust of the earth - and promised to fill her womb not with the seed of Adam but from within with something divine - something from heaven.

In the dispensation of the fullness of the times, You brought heaven and earth together in a young girl named Mary, whose name means "sea of bitterness." It was just like the waters of Marah all over again - the bitter made sweet by the Word of the Lord.

O God of limitless patience, it's just like You to position Yourself within another season of waiting, though this wait was a mere nine months! Isn't that what Advent is? You're bringing me into a piece of Your heart that has expectation, that has always had expectation. I praise You for Your patient heart. You have shown me the way forward. You wait not as one separated from the longing and pain of expectation, but as One who has joined Himself to it.

One day our faith will be sight, but one day, for the very first time since eternity past, You will wait no more. O patient God, I join my heart to Yours and look with joy toward that Day!

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