Advent Tug of War

I had one of those days recently.  You know the kind.  A day when you have perfectly timed out a plan in your head so that you can make the most efficient use of your time and get everything done.  That is until the day actually starts.  What began as a happy morning, suddenly took a turn as activities took twice as long as expected.  Nothing went wrong but even pleasant interruptions and circling the hospital parking lot four times for a parking spot intensified my frustration of not keeping to the appointed agenda. 

This advent has been that way.  For much of it, God and I have been playing a game of tug of war.  I imagine God smiling and laughing as I have tried so hard to pull on the rope to get it to come my way. Alas, God has held strong.

Slowly and finally the message has come to me.   Our timing is not God’s timing.  How often I have used that phrase - usually in the context of someone dying or receiving a difficult diagnosis. But this year it seems to me that it is also the advent message that God has been trying to teach me.  The more I plan and get anxious about checking things off my “to do” list, the more hurting people come to visit me.  Each person, unaware, has been a messenger of Advent.  Not only is my timing not God’s timing, but my priorities of  tasks over  people have been misplaced.   This week, I thanked God for a couple that came in asking for assistance and told me all about their life story.  They were messengers of Advent as I put aside the piles on my desk and focused on their desire for better times in life.    
It is in Advent that we wait, we wonder, we hope, we dream and we believe that God will come to restore us and  make us new.    It is in unexpected interruptions -  the announcement of Gabriel, the imposed travel for a census, the appearance of angels in the night sky - where God’s love intervenes with hope.  And perhaps it is in the interruptions of our daily schedules that God continues to break in to redirect our paths.  The proclamations may come in such humble packages from unanticipated visitors that they could be easily missed in the frenzy of busy days.  It is in anticipation of unexpected interruptions that I enter in to the last week Advent with joy.