The second week of Advent is upon us and with it Christmas comes closer and the frenzied rush of shopping and preparations as well. It was only yesterday that I finally put up my Christmas tree in my apartment with the help of my mom. Later that evening I put on Christmas music and began to work on my list of Christmas cards to be sent out later this week. Amidst all of my preparations, I realized in reading this Sunday’s readings that while I am preparing for the Christmas season, Christ too has been preparing.
In the second reading today St. Paul writes to the Philippians and says “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it...” . This one line of Paul’s letter has been something I have reflected on over the past few months in my own life, but it is only now that I am seeing it in a different light.
God is and has been preparing. As much as I am tasked this Advent with preparing for the Lord to enter into my heart this Christmas season in a deeper way, Christ himself has been preparing me to encounter Him more deeply as well. He has been showing me what love looks like, and how his plan for me is indeed good. But how often do I neglect to see that goodness, or lack trust in his loving plan?
I have to be honest and say that many times it is a struggle to trust in the Lord, especially when it seems like He is not seeing His good work through to completion in my life. But the truth of the matter is that many times I put a time stamp on God’s goodness and his plan for me. I put God in a corner and when He doesn’t deliver by x date I allow my trust in Him to plummet.
Although Christmas is on the 25th and with it brings the fruits of my own preparations, God’s gift, the one that is good and perfect does not have an expiration date. Do we have confidence in the Lord to see it through to completion? For me that confidence comes from taking time out of my own preparations this Advent to allow God to reveal to me His preparations of my heart, to show me the plan He has been enacting in me for some time now. It means giving God room to continue to prepare me, to surrender more of my heart as I grow in deeper relationship with Him.
What is the good work God has begun in your life? Have you made room in your preparations this Advent to allow God to show you how He would like to see it through to completion?