God has asked us to wait. We can lament that, or see it as an opportunity. May you embrace God’s call to wait during this Advent season. And in that waiting may you see and engage the opportunity to grow in your walk with Christ.

May you awaken from your slumbered waiting and set your path for the mountain before you. May we say together, "Come, let's climb God's Mountain, He'll show us the way he works so we can live the way we're made. May you wait differently this year.

May we uncover the fears that lead to idle hands. May we confront the judgments that lead to idle hearts. May we always be moving towards what is good because we can and because we get to. Amen!

When God speaks your name may you find the courage to begin the work. May you trust the promise that God's very best and most beautiful work is that of the rebuild.

May you learn to see your cries of lament as the necessary foundation to a life of faith. May you position your life to stand watch, to wait, and to listen for God's voice.

May you come to know that the full expression of your life, the meaning of your name, and your heart's true desire are uncovered in the honest engagement and the sacred wrestling. And when, not if, you are wounded; may your woundedness help you journey home.

May we be the righteous, those who live by faith. Not a flashy and loud faith that deceives itself into thinking we've got this all sorted out. Not a bigger or better faith, not even a more right faith. Rather the tiny seed of authentic and honest faith that can move mountains and uproot trees, the kind of faith that is always asking us to begin and end with grace.

May you be awakened to the truth that your life is not only your life, rather it is deeply connected to the life of others; their death is your death, their living is your living. So get busy living by closing the chasm of how things are and how they could be.

May you look up from your life to notice what or who you have lost along the way. May you take responsibility for the losing and commit to the necessary steps; whatever they cost and however long they take, in order to pursue the work of wholeness and restoration.

May you remember that as your life presses in closer to the very heart of God in Jesus that you will be asked to leave more and more of yourself behind.