17/12/2025
In the poem ‘Kneeling’ the priest and poet R.S. Thomas writes:
Prompt me, God;
But not yet. When I speak,
Though it be you who speak
Through me, something is lost.
The meaning is in the waiting.
The meaning is so often in the waiting, but waiting is one of the hardest things, especially when we have no certainty or clarity about what is to come. But as the German pastor and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us:
We simply have to wait and wait…
The celebration of Advent is possible only to those troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.
In their book ‘When Church Stops Working: A Future for Your Congregation beyond More Money, Programs and Innovation’ Andrew Root and Blair Bertrand make a similar point about the vital importance of waiting:
God’s act frees us to wait in Christ. The waiting that God invites us into is not a dull void but an invitation to participate in God’s own life. Not by doing, achieving, and possessing but by waiting attentively on God. It’s the gift of having a purpose, even an identity, that has its origin in something other than our anxious selves.
May we all find the meaning in our waiting this Advent season.
- SEARCH
