We can imagine Mary’s excitement and anticipation during those months of pregnancy. But note that she didn’t sit around waiting for the days and hours to pass by. She immediately left Nazareth to visit Elizabeth in the hill country to help her older cousin prepare for the birth of John the Baptist. Then Mary returned and, with Joseph, prepared her own home to welcome this new baby. Her time of waiting was anything but passive. It was, instead, an active time of preparation and anticipation.

During Advent, we, too, are busy with preparations. As we eagerly await the celebration of our Savior’s birth, it’s anything but a passive time. We buy gifts, decorate the home, and try to spend extra time in prayer so that we can fully welcome Jesus into our hearts.

These are times of joyful anticipation. But we all have experienced times of waiting that haven’t been so joyful. Maybe we are weary of waiting to meet our future spouse. Maybe we are waiting for a medical diagnosis or for a child to return to the faith. We may even be living with a terminal illness and waiting for the day when we take our final breath. How can we make these periods of waiting active, fruitful times to grow closer to God and prepare our hearts for whatever he has in store for us?

That’s what we want to explore this Advent. We want to see what attitudes and dispositions will help us in every situation in which we are called to wait on the Lord to fulfill his plans for our lives. We’ll do that by looking at the men and women in Scripture who had to wait on the Lord. They can show us the way.

Eyes on the Lord. Mary was a holy young woman whom God had chosen to be the mother of his only begotten Son. Perhaps that’s why she could pray her beautiful canticle, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). Mary proclaimed these words after arriving at the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth. When Elizabeth saw Mary, she was filled with the Holy Spirit and cried out, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb” (1:41-42). Mary responded by giving God all the glory: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior” (1:46-47). Mary kept her eyes fixed on God and what he was doing in her life.

The key to any situation in which we find ourselves waiting is to keep our focus on God. Yet it’s all too easy to get distracted and sometimes even stray from obeying his commandments. This is what often happened to the Israelites as they were waiting for deliverance from their enemies. They were calling on the Lord to save them, but even while they were beseeching him, they sometimes got distracted by the customs of their neighbors. If God wouldn’t listen to them, then maybe the god Baal would! So they turned to idol worship, rejecting the true God who loved them so much.

Our world is full of distractions, and we often welcome them when we are waiting on the Lord to act in our lives. Such diversions make the time pass more quickly, and they keep us from thinking about what lies ahead and how we will deal with it. But all too often, distractions take our eyes off the Lord. We start to turn to them to soothe our painful feelings rather than turning to God himself. Then we risk losing our focus on the Lord and what he is doing in the present moment. We also risk missing the opportunity he is giving us in these times of waiting to grow closer to him.

For example, as we cling to the Lord in our need, our trust in him can deepen. As we experience his comfort and assurance, we will know that he has not abandoned us. We may also realize that we can rely on his grace to sustain us, day by day and even moment by moment. Our desire for prayer and the sacraments, especially Confession and the Eucharist, may intensify. In fact, these times of waiting can be periods of great growth in our spiritual lives.

Keeping our focus on God in our waiting can also help us to remain obedient and steadfast in our commitment to follow him. Distractions can turn into indulgences that not only lead us away from God but can also lead us into temptation or sin. We might find ourselves replacing our morning prayer with a heavy dose of news and entertainment. Or we might be inclined to mindless activities that waste time and energy better spent serving our brothers and sisters.

Don’t Give Up! One temptation we all face when we have been waiting for a long time is to resign ourselves to the status quo. We decide that God’s will isn’t coinciding with ours, and so we give up on praying. It’s true that we don’t always get what we ask for or think we need. But we still need to come before the Lord each day. He may show us that he is answering our prayer in a different way than we expected. And even when we don’t see any change in our situation, we must keep leaning into him, trusting that he is good and will provide for us in the way he thinks is best.

One young woman from the Bible who didn’t give up was Hannah. Childless and the target of taunts by her husband’s other wife, Peninnah, Hannah was distraught. She so wanted a baby! She could have just given up. Worse, she could have hardened her heart toward God, who seemed not to care about her pain. Instead, she went to the shrine at Shiloh and threw herself upon the mercy of God. So distressed was she that the priest Eli thought she was drunk! But he told her, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have requested” (1 Samuel 1:17). Hannah became pregnant, and that child, a son, became the great prophet Samuel (1:1–2:21).

We know that the way in which Hannah prayed revealed that she had an honest, heartfelt relationship with God. As she told Eli, “I have had neither wine nor liquor; I was only pouring out my heart to the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:15). This was the fruit of her coming before God and waiting for him to answer her prayer. And even if she had not become pregnant, she would not have lost the freedom to pour out her heart to God—something she had learned through her waiting.

God Is Working. As difficult as our times of waiting can sometimes be, we can trust that the Lord will work in them and through them if we stay focused on him. But there are also other ways that God can shape our hearts as we wait. In our next essay, we will see how God can open our hearts to his plan for our lives, even when we aren’t sure what that plan is or whether it is one we would choose for ourselves. However our life unfolds, we can believe that God is always with us in the waiting, loving us and helping us draw closer to him.

Questions for Reflection

1. Is there something you are waiting for this Advent? If so, have you been waiting for a long time?
2. What practices help you stay focused on the Lord? What could you do this Advent to help you wait with joy for his coming?
3. How have you dealt with disappointment when you’ve been waiting a long time and your prayers haven’t been answered?
4. How has God worked in your life during periods of waiting? What fruit did this bear?

The psalms are a treasured resource for praying to God during times of waiting. Here is one example:

Surely, I wait for the Lord;
who bends down to me and hears my cry,
Draws me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the muddy clay,
Sets my feet upon rock,
steadies my steps,
And puts a new song in my mouth,
a hymn to our God.
Many shall look on in fear
    and they shall trust in the Lord.
Blessed the man who sets
    his security in the Lord,
    who turns not to the arrogant
    or to those who stray after falsehood.
(Psalm 40:2-5)