Patience has been described as, “The quality you admire in the driver behind you, but can’t stand in the driver in front of you.”

For most of us patience is hard. But in the weeks leading up to Advent, and during Advent itself, we’re told over and over again to prepare—to wait with patience—for the coming of the Lord, past and future.

And so, it’s a refreshing contrast in this Second Week of Advent, that we, along with the original recipients of 2 Peter are strongly encouraged to give focus not to our own patience, but instead to consider and rest in the gracious patience of the Lord.

Turns out he’s really good at it.

A selection from week 1 of our Advent Devotional. Find more meditations and subscribe here.

Americans are impatient. Or at least I am. “Next day delivery on Amazon Prime?!? But I want it now.”

Wait? The ubiquitous droning message of the commercial world is, “Don’t. Have it now.”

This stands in cultural contrast to Advent: a season of waiting (and penitence) as we look forward to a joyous celebration that begins on Christmas Day—a feast intensified by the anticipation of waiting.

Especially, as now, when times are trying, it’s easy to be impatient for something good. And if you are, you’re in good company. The Prophet Isaiah certainly was.

Matthew 25:31-46 is the end of Jesus teaching ministry. The bottom line. Famous last words.

Who will stand in this day of judgement? Who can shoulder such a burden? When Jesus Christ returns to establish his Kingdom, will any of us make it through the gate?

Many assume that the opposite of love is hate, but it’s not. The opposite of love is apathy.

Similarly, the opposite of faith may not be what you assume. And it’s faith’s opposite that underlies and drives the narrative in this week’s Gospel reading.

Is it driving you, too?

The Beatitudes are among the literary and religious treasures of the human race. We can savor them, affirm them, meditate on them, and engrave them on plaques to hang on our walls. But a major question remains: How are supposed to live in response to them?

This isn’t an idle question. Misunderstanding the “blesseds” given by Jesus in Matthew 5 has caused pain and confusion down through the ages that continues today.

Strangely enough, his “blesseds” haven’t uniformly been a blessing.

It’ll help us know what to do—and what not to do—with the Beatitudes if we can discover what Jesus himself was doing with them.

So remember that, according to the river, for the Israelites to leave the corners of their fields unharvested so that the widow, orphan and alien, and their animals, could glean and graze – this wasn’t an act of charity. It was justice – giving them what they were legally entitled to as sacraments of the LORD’s ownership of all land. So too for us, as we mark the corners off our incomes and our days to act in the world so that the hungry can be fed, the alien supported, the ‘orphans and widows’ of our day given hope – this isn’t self-sacrifice or high nobility. It’s justice, and only justice, and in doing justice in the world we bear witness to the one who called Israel to care for the widow and the orphan, and who became a resident alien as the son of man who had no place to rest his head. Therefore go and do justice, and love mercy, and walk in humility with Jesus.

A key question in counseling and professional coaching (as well as the rest of life) is, “If you’re saying Yes to this, what are you saying No to?” It’s key because it reflects a simple reality: saying Yes to certain things necessarily means saying No to others.

The reverse true, too.

Some Yeses begin with Noes. For St. Paul, one thing especially.