We don’t like to wait. Not really.
We scroll when we’re in line. We refresh tracking pages like they’ll magically speed up the delivery. We microwave. We DoorDash. We Amazon Prime. We want results, answers, change—now. Waiting feels like wasting.
I remember when we moved into our first house a few years ago, and I boldly told my husband we didn’t need a microwave. We can just use the oven, I said, like a pioneer woman with something to prove. We were going to be refined, intentional, slow-food kind of people.
Until I tried reheating the leftover cheesy fries. It took forever. And after burning my tongue on the outer crust of reheated pizza too many times, I caved. We bought the microwave. And I loved that thing like it had been with me all along.
Waiting—even for good things—is hard.
And yet, Advent calls us into this rhythm again. This season whispers what we’ve tried to rush past all year. Wait. Slow down. Pay attention. Hope is coming—but not on your timeline.
Titus 2 reminds us what we’re actually waiting for:
“…we wait for the happy fulfillment of our hope in the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
This isn’t just sentimental waiting. This is soul-deep hope. Certain hope. The kind that anchors us—not because we’ve seen the end yet, but because we know who writes it.
Paul roots our waiting in what’s already happened:
“The grace of God has appeared…”
That’s Christmas. That’s Jesus in the flesh. Grace has already broken in, and it’s not finished yet.
Advent holds this holy tension between the already and the not yet.
Grace has come to save and train and transform us. And still, we wait for the day when glory finishes what grace began.
But while we wait, we live.
Not just hold on tight and try to make it. Not just distract ourselves until the trumpet sounds. We live with purpose, with holiness, with the full weight of what Jesus already did, and the full confidence of what He’s promised to do.
Because waiting for our blessed hope doesn’t mean sitting still. It means living like He really is coming back. It means living like someone washed in grace. Like someone bought back from empty ways of living. Like someone who has a future so secure that it changes the present.
This kind of waiting shapes everything.
It shapes how we speak. How we love. How we spend our time. How we endure suffering. How we extend mercy. How we see the world, not as our final home, but as a place where we are formed for the One who is coming again.
Advent is not just about remembering a baby in a manger. It’s about preparing for a King who will return. It’s not sentimental. It’s sanctifying.
So don’t despise the wait. God is in it. Grace is still at work. And the hope ahead is not wishful thinking. It’s blessed. It’s promised. It’s on its way.
Come, Lord Jesus.
