If you want to see the power of hope in operation, just take a look at a child as they long for the day that they get to find an unwrap the perfect gift under the Christmas tree. Hope can sustain us, but the flip side of hope is waiting, and we aren't very good at waiting. Waiting reminds us that we are not in control of our lives — it's an affront to our pride — but it's in the waiting that God does his work.

Advent 2025

The build up to Christmas is a time of intense preparations, but we get so busy preparing our homes that we forget about preparing our hearts. Culturally we are more conditioned to prepare for the arrival of Santa than we are Jesus! But that's why for hundreds of years the church has embraced the season of Advent — an invitation to prepare ourselves for the coming of Jesus afresh in our lives again at Christmastime.