Waiting, Longing, Hoping, Expecting

By Tressa Czysz

What are you waiting for?
What are you longing for?
What are you hoping for?
What are you expecting?

These questions keep coming up this Advent season. And I think they are questions that we don't typically spend enough time reflecting on. Because really, as we learned in class last week, "what the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies" -Thomas Cranmer. To me, this means that if we are consciously aware of the things that we are deeply longing for and waiting on, we can better anticipate and control the things we choose and seek after and the things we justify spending our time, energy, and talents on. Or, to look at it in reverse, all you must do is look at the things that you think make the most sense or the things that you prioritize and you can trace them back to some desire or expectation at their roots. And then once we have identified what we are waiting for, we can address what waiting looks like.

What does it mean to wait?
Does it mean to sit back and passively do nothing?
Does it mean to just letting whatever happens happen?
Or is there preparation to be done?
What does a hopeful anticipation look like?
How do we find the balance between waiting on the Lord and doing good works?

I think the challenge for me every day is definitely to slow down and do less, to trust God to move even when I'm not actively doing something. I get so caught up in my own head, thinking that I have to accomplish so many things and check off so many tasks from my list that I neglect just enjoying God and sitting in his presence. 

However, when it comes to big things, like what's the next big chapter in my life, what does my future career look like, and what might it look like to be a wife and a mother some day, I find that I don't spend as much time preparing and doing, but trusting that God's got a plan for all of it. Not to say that he doesn't, but I think that there's a fair amount of agency in those things as well, and if I could take some of my everyday "doing" and apply it towards preparing myself for the big things I'm waiting on, then maybe I would be a bit more ready when those future things come. And if I could slow down a little more every day and spend a little less time doing and a little more time enjoying being in the presence of God, I think I would feel a little more at peace in this season of Advent -both as an annual season and in the areas of my life that feel like seasons of waiting.