Waiting (or, Still Way too Many Commas Used) Part II

Advent means coming. This is the season of coming and also the season of arrival. A season where we recognize that Christ came and redeemed us not just from our sins by dying on the cross, but redeemed us, redeemed me from the drudgery of life that can overtake us at times. (This will all makes more sense if you read the article I talked about.) Have you have ever felt the pull of drudgery that can quietly snuff the real life out of your spirit? (Okay, that definitely sounded a tad dramatic...) Believe me, I love routine just as much as the next person--probably more. Routine is good for us as humans...it gives our lives a sense of rhythm and consistency. But the mundane is different from routine. The mundane is where your days begin to slide into one another and they all begin to feel the same. Then at some point, something will prick your memory about a time before you felt that way, and all the sudden you begin to wonder what happened to the joy you once had in simply living life. If you've never experienced that, then perhaps you've got it all together and you have no need of Christ. Personally, I am in absolute desperate need of a redeemer. I continually need God to prick me, spiritually.

I am feeling in need of this season of Advent in a place so deep in my spirit. Cynicism has begun to take root in my spirit. When you are disappointed enough...you begin to believe that everything will disappoint you. You begin to believe that nothing will be good and pure like you believed when you were a child.

So again this year I am waiting. Waiting for the redemption I need so desperately and wondering if it is going to come. I am longing for what I believe is just around the corner...yet I am afraid that once I get to that corner, there won't be anything there. I am afraid to hope. Afraid to be disappointed. Afraid, perhaps, that Christ won't do what he has promised. Afraid the promises will fall short. Afraid He won't deliver.

Again, the thing that strikes me about Advent is that the heart of my cry is the same as the cries throughout all of history. Will he come? When will he come? The Jewish people must have wondered if their hope was in vain. They all stood on one side of the promise. They believed in the promise of a savior. Yet many of them never lived to see the promise fulfilled. I, however, live on the other side of that promise. I have seen the fulfillment of the promise of a deliverer. 

But sometimes it feels like God keeps me out in the cold too long. He is with me in the cold...but it is still dang cold, you know? I am afraid one of these times I am going to let go. Going to give up. I can understand God not showing me his hand of cards. I understand this is a life of faith. I understand and expect my faith to be stretched. Yet...yet sometimes I wonder how far God plans to stretch me before assuring me in some tangible way that he is still moving in my life. The fact that God "won't give us more than we can handle" doesn't comfort me much. I have seen what God thinks people can handle--death, disease, destruction, desolation. It is not just an alliteration. It is what many face. I face none of those, in actuality. The point is, God apparently think/knows we can handle a butt load. And here I am complaining that God isn't doing what I want him to do.Typical American Christian.

Will I take God at his word, before I see the fulfillment of his promises?

Oh, and I told you I used an excessive amount of commas.You knew what you were getting into. (In to? Into? Should that be one word or two?)