Advent is a season of waiting. Just as God’s people waited for the coming of Christ, we on this side of the resurrection are waiting for His second coming. Waiting is woven into the Christmas season in ways we hardly notice anymore. Countdown calendars. Advent calendars for kids. Christmas decorations showing up earlier and earlier each year. All of it is designed to help us anticipate what is coming. Advent reminds us that waiting is part of the story.
The problem is that most of us do not like to wait. And because of that, we are not very good at it.
Think about the last time you were forced to wait. Not a time you planned for, but a time that caught you off guard. Maybe you were driving into town in a hurry and got stopped by a train. Maybe you were trying to get out the door on time, only to end up sitting in the car waiting for one person who was not ready yet. Maybe someone told you they needed to talk to you and did not say why, and now you are stuck waiting with that knot in your stomach.
When that happens, do you like it? Are you grateful for it? Do you find yourself saying, “I do not know why I have to wait right now, but I am sure God has good plans through it all?” If you are anything like me, probably not.
And yet Advent has been one of the primary ways Jesus has taught His people to wait. He does it because waiting is not incidental to the Christian life. It is central.
Think about it.
We spend most of our lives waiting.
According to a research firm in the United Kingdom, the average person spends about seven total years of their life waiting. Waiting in line. Waiting for a response. Waiting for food. Waiting for something to load. Waiting for a sermon to end (you know who you are…). When you add it up, waiting is not the exception to life. It is a major part of it.
That means all of us are waiting on something. Kids waiting for Christmas morning. Teenagers waiting for independence. Young adults waiting to see what life and relationships will look like. Older adults waiting for their kids to make wiser choices or for their bodies to stop hurting. To live is to wait. And to follow Jesus in a broken world requires waiting on God to answer prayer, to provide, and to bring clarity.
Which raises a hard but honest question…
How well do you wait?
This is why Advent matters. Left to ourselves, we are not very good at waiting. And waiting is one of the primary tools God uses to form our character.
God places us in situations that force us to wait because waiting has the potential to shape who we become. It can make us more patient, more faithful, and more whole. But it can also make us bitter and reactive.
We see this all the time. The person who explodes at the checkout line. The driver who cannot tolerate even a brief delay. In moments like these, we do not walk away thinking, “Wow, they are amazing people.” We walk away thinking, “They need help.” Waiting reveals our character.
But the opposite is also true.
Think about people you have watched wait well. Someone walking through illness with quiet joy. Someone under pressure who responds with patience and kindness. Those people draw us in. They make us want the kind of maturity they carry.
James speaks directly to this when he writes, “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial.” The word translated persevere literally means to wait under. To remain under the weight without running from it. James is not saying the happiest people lived easy lives. He is saying the people who waited well under difficulty are the ones who found life on the other side of it.
Waiting feels like a test because it is one. Tests reveal what is actually forming us. And like most tests, they are uncomfortable and stretch us in ways we would not choose for ourselves.
I have felt this recently in CrossFit. There is something humbling about standing under a bar loaded with weight, lowering yourself again and again until your legs shake and your body wants to quit. It feels overwhelming. But staying under the weight is what builds strength.
Life has seasons like that. Seasons where it feels like you are standing under something heavy and you cannot rush the outcome or control the timeline. In those moments, God calls us to wait. And in that waiting, He shapes our trust.
Which leads to the deeper reason Jesus teaches us to wait: because in God’s economy, waiting is trusting.
Throughout Scripture, waiting on God and trusting God are inseparable. Abraham waited for a son. Joseph waited through betrayal and prison. David waited for the throne. Paul waited through suffering. In each case, waiting was not passive. It was an act of faith.
The Christmas story is no different. When the angel spoke to Mary and Joseph, he did not give them proof. He gave them a promise. And they had to live into that promise slowly and often without clarity. Even after Jesus was born, they had to trust that what God said was true. God’s promises almost always unfold through long and ordinary seasons of waiting. This is why the Psalms tell us, “We wait for the Lord. Our heart is glad in him because we trust in his holy name.”
So here is the question I keep coming back to in this season: How well are you waiting right now? And how do you need to finish this prayer honestly?
“God, help me to wait for you to ______.”
Advent reminds us that waiting is not wasted time. God is always at work, even when nothing seems to be moving.
This is the shorter version of a sermon I preached at Wabash Friends Church. You can watch or listen to the entire sermon here:
* Quick note: I didn’t use AI to write this post. I’m not opposed to AI—I think it’s a helpful tool—but I started this blog to grow as a writer and to put words to what I’m genuinely thinking. For me, that means writing this post by hand, even when it’s imperfect. Thanks for reading.