As I reflect on how to be attentive to God in this season, I was blessed by this reflection from my colleague Bobby Gross. May God use it in your life as well.
Near the end of the final Narnian Chronicle by C. S. Lewis, a battle rages on the slopes of a hill atop which sits a small shabby stable. But once through the wooden door, the characters find themselves in a capacious, Edenic landscape with blue skies and fruitful groves. In their bewilderment, one of them squints back through the slats of the door at the night-darkened battlefield from which they had escaped and remarks with a wondrous smile.
“It seems, then, that the stable seen from within and the stable seen from without are two different places.”
“Yes,” said the Lord Digory. “Its inside is bigger than its outside.”
Not unlike a certain stable in human history, Queen Lucy goes on to say.
In my book Living the Christian Year I titled the Advent chapter: “Enlarged in the Waiting,” after a phrase in Eugene Peterson’s translation of Romans 8:12-25 in The Message:
“…waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, do not see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.”
As we have entered the season of Advent, I am praying that God would enlarge us with his presence within, a spirit stronger than we often feel, and open our eyes to his workings in a realm bigger than the circumstances we can see.
This year, the ambit of our lives have been reduced and the brokenness of our society exposed. Disruption and loss, sickness and death, injustice and animosity, fear and uncertainty weigh on us all. As 2020 limps to conclusion with ever shorter days and longer nights:
- we lament the darkness and difficulties of our times (How long, O Lord?),
- we long for light to increase and goodness to prevail (Your kingdom come),
- we look for signs of hope and moments of grace (Open my eyes, O Lord),
- we let God work his enlargement in us (Let it be with me according to your Word).
Perhaps the pandemic’s damper on this usually frenetic season will afford each of us greater space to rest, to reflect, and to immerse ourselves in the themes of Advent; to find the quiet joys of Christmas and the profound mysteries of Incarnation.
