Have you ever felt suspended—or even stuck—between what is and what could be? Perhaps you are between jobs and the future seems uncertain. Or you are navigating a broken relationship through the slow, slippery work of rebuilding trust. Maybe you look at the injustice in the world and long for lasting peace.
Between Ache and Answer
Advent finds us in the uncomfortable space between ache and answer. Anglican author Tish Harrison Warren writes, “To practice Advent is to lean into an almost cosmic ache: our deep, wordless desire for things to be made right and the incompleteness we find in the meantime.”
If you have felt that raw, restless longing for wholeness, Advent is for you.
The four weeks of Advent are more than a prelude to Christmas. They are a purposeful pause. In this season, the church slows down to pay attention to its longings and practice yearning for the coming of Christ.
Becoming People of Hope
In Scripture, waiting is not wasted time. It is where God often does his most transformative work—not in the arrival of answers, but in the anticipation of his presence.
In Romans 8:18-30, Paul draws us into the tension of the “already and not yet”, something central to the Christian life. He shows us that God’s grace meets us in our groaning. He grounds us in the promise of glory so he can form us into people of hope as we wait.
The Gallery of Waiting
In the Bible, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets, and the disciples all endured long seasons of trusting God between promise and fulfilment. Paul gathers all these faces into a single frame. He depicts creation and the children of God as “waiting with eager longing” for God’s promised future (Rom. 8:19, 23).
Advent finds us in the uncomfortable space between ache and answer.
Do not let the strangeness of this gallery escape you. Every portrait along the walls of redemptive history tells a tale of longing for something that has not arrived. So we need to ask, “Why does God let his people wait rather than resolving their struggles immediately?”
What does it reveal about his nature and character? Could it be that waiting is not a divine oversight or a detour from the life of faith? What if it’s actually a design woven into its very fabric?
These stories teach us that waiting is part of our spiritual heritage. The Christian life doesn’t sidestep waiting but unfolds day by day in the disorienting space between frustration and fulfilment. Where is God inviting you to trust him and wait patiently, even when the answer is nowhere in sight?
The Groaning of Waiting
Waiting is not glamorous; it groans. Hope deferred makes the heart sick (Prov. 13:12).
Paul uses vivid, visceral language to reiterate this: “the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth. . . we ourselves. . . groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:22–23).
Creation groans. Our bodies groan. Yet in Christ, our groaning is purposeful. Like the pains of childbirth, it signals the arrival of a coming newness in Christ.
Where do you feel a sense of groaning most deeply in your life? How might your groans indicate the hope of restoration?
The Grace in Our Waiting
Paul writes, “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Rom. 8:25). In this very act of waiting—and not yet receiving—God works powerfully. Paul writes, “the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. . .” (Rom. 8:26).
In Christ, our groaning is purposeful.
Waiting exposes our hearts and reveals the substitutes and shortcuts to which we turn. The Spirit helps us by gently redirecting our longings back to Christ. Advent reminds us that Christ came—not merely to finish our waiting—but to fill it with his presence.
Where is God inviting you to rest in his promised presence in the midst of your waiting? Where do you most need to hear the Spirit say to you, “My grace is sufficient for you, my strength is made perfect in your [waiting]?”
The Glory of Waiting
Paul compels us to see waiting through the lens of glory—not just through the lens of groaning. He says, “Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory. . .to be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). For those in Christ, waiting does not end in despair but in joy. It carries the promise that one day sorrow will give way to a joy beyond our best imagination.
Paul ends this section in Romans 8 by assuring us that God embeds his grand purpose for his children into every moment of waiting. This divine plan begins with his love and ends in glory (Rom. 8:29-30).
In the second verse of Wendell Kimbrough’s song The Eternal Weight of Glory, he captures the hope of Advent waiting.
When we meet our King of Grace
Every year we thought was wasted
Every night we cried, ‘How long?’
All will be a passing moment
In our Saviour’s victory song.
This is the promise of Advent.
When we meet King Jesus, every delay, disappointment, and disrupted plan is not forgotten but transformed. In his presence, all our sorrows and sighs become songs of grace.
This Advent, may we do more than just count the days to Christmas. Let us deliberately pause and invite God to grow us in the art of hopeful waiting, for the King who comes to make all things new (Isa 43:19, Rev. 21:5).
