Advent-Waiting Expectantly
This is a guest blog by my long time friend, Vicky Haley.
The advent season is a season of waiting expectantly to celebrate the Nativity of Christ and see the return of Christ at the second coming. But wait….do we as Americans really enjoy waiting and preparing? We have become a nation of instant gratification with drive-throughs and microwave dinners. But didn’t your mother tell you that anything worth having was worth waiting for?
January 1 is coming and probably everyone who reads this will start some kind of new resolutions, many of which will be health related. Some will join the gym hoping to get rid of the Covid pounds and the holiday inches. Some will start some sort of diet or swearing off all the goodies that you consumed during the holidays. I know this partly because for years I was right there with you and partly because I managed a gym and watched it happen. The first week of January the gym was so busy that you couldn’t find an empty space to park your extra pounds! But long before Easter and many times before Valentines Day the gym was quite empty. Why when we start the year with such good intentions? I’ve come to the conclusion that you and I don’t want to wait, we want the instant body we see on Instagram. We want the 6-pack that we saw on that guy in the gym the few times that we went. But, I’m here to tell you that if you want that body, that level of fitness it requires commitment and waiting. Waiting? Oh yes! I’m not sure which it requires the most of, but I do know from my years of striving for that better body that it wasn’t until I slowed down long enough to let a coach teach me new habits and commit to doing them that I had a successful outcome.
I think that the Lord knew that waiting was going to be hard on us and require some spiritual discipline that’s why so many times in scripture He told us to wait. Psalms 37:7a “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him” Isaiah 40:31 “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
Most of the time we think waiting means not doing anything. I want to suggest to you today that whatever you are waiting for, stop and ask God what should I be doing while I’m waiting? As we wait during the Advent season, we cook, we clean, we shop and we prepare for the times we will be spending with family. As a health coach I’m encouraging you that when you start a new fitness program or eating regimen “wait expectantly” for the results! But while you are waiting, ask God, “What do I need to be doing?” He will provide the strength that we need to do what needs to be done while we wait to become!
I hope that you can look at waiting with a new perspective during this Advent Season. While you wait in line, who is the person God wants to touch? As you wait at the red light, who can you pray for? See? Waiting doesn’t mean sitting totally still, sometimes it may, but many times it means doing what needs to be done to prepare for what God has called us to do! Jesus told the disciples to “occupy until I come” I interpret that to be doing what is necessary, while waiting expectantly for the end result!
I don’t know about you, but I’m going to be preparing while I expectantly wait!
Vicky Haley
Healthy Habits with Vicky
