The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9 NAS95)
I’m amazed at God’s patience and love. I wonder what history looks like from His perspective. How beautiful might the painting of earth’s history look as we consider love invading to restore it to beauty. I wonder what the record of transformed lives on this planet would tell us about God’s love. What does the beauty of waiting mean as history reveals the story of God and His relationship to us?
I ponder Christmas, waiting from the announcement to Adam for the One coming to defeat the enemy of God. I don’t know how many years after Adam Jesus came, but I do know about 2,100 passed since Abraham lived. God never left us alone and without indications of His presence and involvement. Patience. Waiting.
Jesus arrives in a manger and His purpose focused on showing us the Father’s character and glory as well as the character and glory the Trinity intended us to reflect in our transformation. Patience. Waiting. Beauty. Love. Glory. Christmas coming to us and through us in Jesus.
Between advents, as we wait for the second, God invites us to partner with Him because He desires all to return to Him and His originally intended purpose for our lives. As I have walked with Jesus, and pondered Him, I’ve wondered what His interior life with the Father was like. Waiting concerns our transformation.
Transformation into glory, God’s kind of glory, takes time. Pondering Jesus’ interior life with the Father who loves like no other calls me to surrender to that love. Surrendering to it calls Christmas to life in my life. Jesus’ advent to my interior and that interactive life with the Trinity fills Christmas with meaning for me. And others who watch and see.
I consider my short life and Jesus’ advent into my soul. My interior tapes from an alcoholic home, the fear of emotions I carried, the insecurities of unloveableness, the over concern about my own significance, the transformation project Jesus undertook, and my experience of that transformation in process, I cry out with gratitude for Christmas!
Patience, waiting, love transforming from Jesus adventing to us and in us. It all takes time. I want to join God in calling people’s attention to the meaning of Jesus’ first advent: Christmas! Pondering 2 Peter 3:9 in conversation with God makes me wonder about the painting history will reveal of God’s glory..
For Reflection:
“In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.…There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.” (John 1:4, 9 NAS95)
- What does the beauty of your transformation story say about God and His love?
- What are the practices or habits that help you cultivate presence to God throughout your day?
