Wait For It...

"Then the Lord answered me and said:
Write the vision;
   make it plain on tablets,
   so that a runner may read it.
For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
   it speaks of the end, and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
   it will surely come, it will not delay." (Hab. 2:2-4)

It's snowing right now. The metorologists are predicting 2-4 inches of the white stuff. Some would say that this potential snow fall is coming at the wrong time. It's going to interrupt the few days left of Christmas shopping. It's going to interrupt Christmas parties (which reminds me, probably should put together a plan b). It's going to make traffic slow. It's going to make me have to go outside and shovel the snow off my sidewalk, shovel my car out and my wife's car out, not to mention the neighbors' cars that I'll end up shoveling because...well I like shoveling snow. Where was I? Oh yes...it's going to cause a problem for those in a hurry this holiday season and I guess we just do not have the time for snow.

We're a culture of hurry. The proof's in the pudding as they would say. Whatever that means and whoever "they" are. We have everything we could want provided to us within a second. In hurry to eat? Stop at McDonald's and get your meal with 30 seconds! Need to get a message to someone and don't have time to talk? Text them. I think you get the point. It's nothing new.

Still, it would seem that it is something we have trouble with.

We're coming to the end of Advent. Soon, we will gather in our respective congregations and sing "Silent Night" while lighting candles. Soon, children will rush down the stairs and rapidly tear through their presents, passing out like Randy in A Christmas Story afterwards. Soon, Christmas will be over and we will ask ourselves, "Where did it go?" With a blink of an eye it will be over.

The Son of God did not come to us in a hurry. Generations after being promised, he arrived and spent nine months gestating in Mary's womb. Then he spent 30 years growing up, learning to possess a strange patience that will cause him to stop and talk to a woman who touched him on his way to heal Jaris' daughter. It's amazing how fast we have to move. It's amazing that we know how much stress is caused because we feel rushed; yet we do nothing to alternate that lifestyle. It would seem to me then, that these moments of beautiful frightening weather is God's way of saying, "Slow down because you're about to miss it."

It's snowing today and God is saying, "Slow down. Something amazing is happening. Whether today or tomorrow, something amazing is happening. Slow down, you will not want to miss it." In the words of Barney Stinson, "Wait for it..."

Happy Christmas