A Season of Waiting

Simeon and Jesus

photo credit

And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.

And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ.

So he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law, he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said:

Lord, now You are letting Your servant
depart in peace,
According to Your word;
For my eyes have seen Your salvation
Which You have prepared
before the face of all peoples;
A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles,
And the glory of Your people Israel."

And Joseph and His mother marveled at those things which were spoken of Him.

Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother,

"Behold, this Child is destined
for the fall and rising of many in Israel,
and for a sign which will be spoken against
(yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also),
that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed."

- Luke 2:25-35

Today is the last Sunday of Advent.

Only eleven days remain before the year 2009 comes to a close.

The past days, I have been savoring the quiet peace and rest here at home.

I have been attending Christmas parties almost every night this week. And going to the mall to pick up a few more gifts that I still needed to buy. And pruning overgrown bushes in my garden early in the morning.

But there was no sense of urgency, and true to the message that God spoke to my heart a week ago, I have been enjoying His presence and His love.

I have been waiting for God's purposes to unfold.


For my 56th birthday last March, God spoke the word unfolding to my heart.

Like the petals of a flower, waiting for the first light of dawn before it slowly begins to open.

Or the wings of a butterfly that has just come out of its cocoon, slowly unfurling.

There is such a gentleness to this word. It speaks of the kind of person that I want to be: appreciative, understanding, undemanding.

People do not have to measure up to my expectations. I can accept them as they are.

It doesn't mean that I will be a doormat, allowing people to trample, or walk, all over me.

Nor does it mean that I condone mediocrity in others.

Not at all.

It simply means that I look at another person's heart and remember that it is fragile. And that there is always one more thing about the other that I am not aware of.

Oswald Chambers once wrote these words, "Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is with you."

I try to be the best that I can be. And I desire to leave behind a good example for others to follow. But my own experience is not the standard for others.

Let me be kind. Let me not hold on to an offended spirit.

Let me not be wise in my own eyes.

Let me just be a woman of grace, a peacemaker.

By Your grace, Father, let me be a channel of Your peace.

These are the noble thoughts that the word unfolding brings to mind. Undoubtedly God is the One planting these desires in me, that I may continue to pursue them in the coming year.

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Simeon has been on my mind these past months.

I believe it is no coincidence that a blog friend, Matt, included a picture of Simeon with Jesus on his most recent blog post. Or that Pastor Andrew spoke about this man in church this morning.

Somehow the story of Simeon waiting for Jesus in the temple brings up this word, unfolding, in my heart. I don't know why, but it does.


It must be because Simeon lived a long time just waiting to see Jesus. The Messiah had been promised to Israel, and they had waited a long, long time for this promise to be realized.

And with that waiting came the shaping of His character. While he waited for the plans of God to unfold, the gradual unfolding of his inner strength also came about.

Suddenly, a light pierces their darkness...and the Messiah appears.

Don't you just love this Christmas story? It is a story of waiting...

"Now your servant can depart in peace, for my eyes have seen Your salvation."

What faith! What hope!

As I reflect on the story of Simeon, I see a man who knew the purposes of God for his life. Simeon received a revelation from the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he saw the Lord's Christ. He could therefore wait...even if it took a long time.

He knew what he was waiting for!

How this story brings such an encouragement to my heart...

In a previous post I have shared that there are two major themes to my life story: one is the theology of weakness, and the other is the spirituality of waiting.

God is not in a hurry to fulfill His plans, He waits for the right time, the right season.

Waiting is the subtitle of my life story. It is the spirituality of waiting that has shaped me and given definition to much of who I am today.

Through the years God has taught me how to wait actively, that is, to wait with a sense of good things happening. To wait with hope.

I often ask God to transform my heart into one that is always willing to wait for Him. I don't want to go ahead of God, I want to wait for Him. Because I know that a person who waits for God has a tender heart, a kind spirit, a wisdom from above...peaceable... flexible... vulnerable.

I remember the impatience of my younger years. How I hated for my plans to go wrong!

Then God brought me through a season where all of my plans went wrong... and it was in the crucible of waiting that God began to transform my heart.

I used to have the mistaken notion that it was all about me - my dreams, my plans, my family, my home, my job, my career, my ministry, my health... my life.

Ah, then the pain came in, disappointment, difficult relationships, health issues, financial issues...

And these became God's instrument of change in my heart.



Yes, waiting has a way of cleansing us. Helps us to know the true from the false. ..what is of God, and what is of the devil.

In my waiting years, and I'm not really out of it yet, God has shown me the beauty of a heart that waits.

Waiting helps us to sort out our priorities and look at life from the right perspective. In light of eternity we learn to live and wait patiently for what really matters.

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The Advent season is a time of waiting with expectation, preparing our hearts to celebrate the birth of our Savior.

For me, Simeon and Anna are the persons who best represent the season of Advent. They were the ones waiting in the temple for the Messiah. Their spirits immediately recognized Jesus as the Promised One, the "Consolation of Israel," when they saw Him.

The most beautiful thing about waiting is the fact that we are not the only ones waiting.

God is also waiting.

Like the prodigal father of the prodigal son, God is waiting for us to return to Him, to come home to His heart, to His beautiful plans and purposes.

He knows where we've been, what we have been up to, to what great lengths we've gone to quiet the noise inside our hearts, and to silence the condemning voices that will not leave us in peace.

The Father understands that we have been looking for Him in all the wrong places. He knows what the enemy has done to our souls, lying to us, tricking us, deceiving us...

Therefore the Lord will wait,
that He may be gracious to you,
And therefore He will be exalted,
that He may have mercy on you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
Blessed are all those who wait for Him.

- Isaiah 30:18


There is a beautiful ending to our waiting! God the Father Himself is waiting with us...waiting for us to come home.

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The last remaining days of this year will be busy ones for me and my family. As I had already mentioned, my son Worshiper will be getting married on the 28th of this month.

I have prayed for it to be a beautiful ending to a beautiful year, an event where God alone will be honored and given glory.

As I end my post, I want to share how God honored me with a tangible answer to that prayer. I woke up very early yesterday. It was a cool Saturday morning. I went out to the garden and enjoyed the serenity. A gentle breeze was blowing. I had just finished watering the plants when it suddenly began to drizzle.

Then, to my amazement, a beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky. It was a full rainbow, spread across the sky for everyone to see. After a few minutes, a second rainbow also began to appear.

What joy it brought to my heart! It was a confirmation that God was walking with me in this season of my life.

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Below are a couple of the photos I took. My camera couldn't take a shot of the full rainbow, only portions of it. But you can have a good idea of how it looked.