Celebrating Advent: Embrace Jesus in This SeasonSample

Celebrating Advent: Embrace Jesus in This Season

DAY 1 OF 4

What Are You Waiting For?

There is a waiting in your heart that is deeper than what you know. A waiting that is pure, good. Slow now, child. There is no rush. You have been waiting all your life, and you have not even known it.

You wait for hope to be satisfied, for dreams to be realized. You wait for life to be easier, for time to be shorter. You wait for money to be more abundant, and friends to be more plentiful. You wait for health to be stronger, and experiences to be richer. You wait . . .

But there are things you have given up on waiting for too. A heart to be fuller, a mind to be stronger, a life to be richer, a heart to be gentler, a soul to be braver. You wait for beauty, or you have given up on it entirely. You wait for freedom— freedom from worry, from fear, from anxiety, from regret. You wait for love to follow you where you want it to lead, to grant you desires in places where you have felt hollow, used up, depleted, not seen.

You forget what waiting is, what it has always been. You forget how the true you, more than anything else, is made to wait on Me. You are made to wait on the arrival of hope, a life turned over, surrendered. Oh, daughter, I am here.

You forget you are paid for with a price. The cost of your life was one I would pay again and again. You forget I wait for you. I have always waited for you. I will never stop waiting for you. But the waiting you do for other things other than Me is what steals your joy, steals your heart—your soul away from Me.

I have waited for you—and I continue to wait—but I ask you to wait on Me now. And your waiting is not for nothing. It is for the Kingdom where you are yourself, the Kingdom where all is restored. Do you want that now, my love? Do you want to walk in freedom and light and hope now? For in your waiting on Me, remember this: I have come, my love. I have been waiting for you, and I have come for you too.

Advent is the time of waiting for what is already here, who has already come. It is a time of turning—turning inward to study your heart. Turning inward to listen for my voice. Turning inward to heed what is true. Advent is for emptying oneself to receive joy in abundance.

A heart grows heavy with waiting. But your hope is not deferred, child. Your life is not deferred. Your strength and light and joy are not deferred. For love has not been held back from you. Life is here. Your King has come. Look to Him now. Study His face, His eyes, His voice. Wait and receive what is yours, what I have designed you to crave more than anything else. Here, here as you wait and you receive, let your soul be satisfied.

My love, I am right here.

Scripture

Day 2

About this Plan

Celebrating Advent: Embrace Jesus in This Season

Is there a “right way” to celebrate Jesus during Advent? Do you have to "do all the things" in order to check the Advent box? This Advent, go deeper into the mystery and majesty of Emmanual, God with us, and invite God to reveal his past, current, and forever presence in the world and in your life as we wait, yes, but also receive Him right now.

More