We take a hard right turn and slide into December this week, barely a minute for catching our breaths after Giving Thanks with family and friends. And suddenly the stores are a glittering Christmas frenzy, and the calendar is filling up with parties and events, and it’s downright hard to find peace when the season demands so much…promises so much. But we talk about it in our small group, how there is this longing inside all of us for something bigger than this world– something better and more enduring than what we find here. And if we have that insistent hunger for something outside our experience, shouldn’t we assume that it’s there for a reason? That there is a corresponding satisfaction for that desire?

So we light the first Advent candle on a cold Winter morning, and in our hearts we echo the Musician-King’s songs: Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. (Psalm 34:10)…I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in His word I put my hope. (Psalm 130:5) We believe what He has promised, and if faith is the substance of things hoped for, then here is faith made flesh– the longing of all of us, lying in a manger. Maybe if we just stop for a moment, and quiet the holiday jingle, we can still hear the angels’ chorus in the night sky: Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom His favor rests. (Luke 2:14)

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Hope isn’t about about thinking something will get better. Hope is about believing Someone better is already here. 

Ann VosKamp

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…put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption..

Psalm 130:7