on Faith and Waiting

What of the unsurety of faith? How does waiting for the Advent of Jesus in this world relate to this fact?

Sometimes faith is so unsure. Sometimes it means standing in the middle of downtown realizing that nothing you are doing at your funky urban church is really doing a thing for all these people (and after all, aren't these the important ones?). And then going back to that little church, to that garden and that house and sweeping the kitchen because in the morning, people will be coming over for breakfast. A quiet assurance that what is happening here matters because God does not look to the powerful, but to the weak. There is joy in that knowledge. It is joy that dances in the face of fear because fear runs everything else--fear of spinning into nothing. But stillness and silence are faith because they trust in something other than ourselves to hold the world up and make it worthwhile. Its like singleness. Singleness as a call and vocation is faith because it trusts that God will regenerate the community of faith, not our own efforts at reproduction. It isn't sure, but it believes. That's why its faith.

the faith of stones that lie,
unmoving in the face of tragedy.
still as all around dies.
the faith of indifference
to the goings-on of the inhabitants.
stones, unmoved in history's silence.
because the stones know that God is moving.

And that is Advent. we wait indifferently because we do not need to know that something is happening now or today or tomorrow or even before we die to know that God is doing something. As they say, "Aslan is on the move." So we wait. We give what we have and no more or less because we know that God is moving and drawing all this world to Godself, working the invisible kingdom into all of the crevaces and crannies. Yet we wait expectantly because we know that this invisible kingdom is a good kingdom and ruled by a good king. We wait expectantly for the time when the world is ruled with righteousness and justice, when power is used justly, and when the nations rally to the banner of King Jesus. Hooray! Leap up and do a jig! Speak in tongues, if you wish! Run, run, run! And also sit and quietly pray. Do whatever you must to be in the presence of the Lord because the Lord is coming.