the words of Advent.....longing

longing

When you travel to a foreign land, you begin to miss the most mundane of items.  Toothpaste that tastes familiar.  Restrooms that are located where you can find them.  The ability to glance at newspaper headlines and read them easily.  Oreo cookies.  It's all a part of the culture shift that naturally occurs.

With time you will notice differences in values, perspectives, traditions, customs.  As a woman you will stop extending your hand to a man you don't know - it's not polite, it's even a bit forward.  No matter what the urgency of your business, you will allow 15 minutes for folks to greet each other, gathering news about family members not present.  If you stay long enough, some of these things will seem perfectly normal.  You will adjust to a new way. [Although you will always miss Oreo cookies.]

Unless, of course, you were forced to leave your homeland, unless you were forced at the point of a gun to leave behind all you valued and march into unknown territory to become 'those people'.  Now you are an unwilling stranger in a strange land with limited power to change your circumstances.  That is when the longing sets in.

When the people of Israel were exiled to a foreign land, they longed for Jerusalem.  This is more than discomfort or awkwardness at new customs.  This is a deep desire to return, and not just physically, but to return to a time and place where you knew who you were.  They longed to return to a place where they felt some power over their lives, where they had history.  They even longed for the smell of the rain after the dry season and the special light at twilight.

Of course, longing has a bit of a glow around it; everything is slightly better in memory than in truth.  Longing is more about the heart and the heart's memory than it is about toothpaste and cookies.

Advent is the perfect season to examine again our longing for God's presence.  Do we seek only the familiar?  Is it our sense of powerlessness that we are trying to ease?  Have we painted a picture of God's coming that is fuzzy on the edges and all 'soft glow'?   Are we longing for God or for our own comfort?

May your longing for Christ's birth lead you to a deeper, richer, more powerful relationship with this God who comes to live among us.  Maranatha.  Come Lord Jesus.