"Tight lines" is a blessing fishermen offer each other, a wish for lines taut with the weight of good fish. May God grant that the lines written here be taut with His blessings.
Tuesday, 24 November 2009 | |||
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Waiting Until Then | |||
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I don't like to wait. My family will tell you. I don't like
to wait. If I walk into a store at a busy time, picked up a few
purchases, then discover a long line to check out, I will sometimes put
my purchases back on the shelf and walk out because I don't want to stand
in line. Yet all of Christian life is something of a waiting mode. In Advent we begin the Church year with a season focused on the spiritual discipline of waiting. We recall how God's people waited for the Messiah long ago and remember that we are also waiting for Him once again, now to return. At this moment in America it may be a little easier to understand and feel the burden of waiting. Many of us are having to wait on purchases and plans and hopes that only a couple years ago we might have pursued immediately. Our circumstances help us grasp the need to wait in spiritual matters, that not everything good God has comes to us at once. Paul's circumstances in our text from I Thessalonians 3:9-13 also forced on him the discipline of waiting. He desperately wanted to visit and see his beloved friends in Christ in Thessalonica. He had help and encouragement to offer them. He had anxieties about them he wanted to set at ease. Yet he couldn't get there right then. And in the process of pondering his wait for that opportunity, he is moved by the end of the passage to ponder what we all wait for, the coming of the Lord. May our waiting this Advent move us in Paul's direction, to better and more hopeful waiting for Christ. May waiting for Christmas make us patient for His second Coming. May waiting through economic trials and job searches and postponed vacations renew our hopeful waiting for eternal blessings. May waiting when all earthly dreams seem dim or even gone school us to wait with a heavenly joy for a day that will make all our waiting worth it. God bless you in Advent. While you wait you may want to consider the thoughts in the promo video at www.adventconspiracy.org. Lay aside the hype and the marketing of what liturgical churches have been preaching for centuries, and hear a message of how we might wait hopefully and helpfully in love and service. | |||
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Profile |
I am the pastor of Valley Covenant Church in Eugene, Oregon. I love to flyfish and hike along the beautiful rivers in our area. I welcome your comments as I share sermon work in progress and occasional other thoughts.
Thank you for visiting this blog. I invite you also to visit my web page.
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