Remember how long it took Christmas to come when you were a child? 

From Thanksgiving on, the excitement would build. Decorations would appear in stores. Then lights popped up around town, draped in trees like fairy necklaces. Mouth-watering smells wafted out of neighbors’ kitchens. Christmas trees strapped to station wagon roofs rolled by like a parade. 

Dad would finally drag the family tree out of the attic and set it up in the living room. One by one (or sometimes in clumps) packages would appear under the Christmas tree. Stockings dangled from the mantle like limp balloons waiting for the breath of Christmas to fill them. 

It was a horrible marvelous wait, those childhood seasons of Advent. 

And although my childhood Advents were more glittery than the wait the children of Israel experienced, the delays were holy pauses nonetheless. 

My sisters and I hoped for a bicycle, the latest Barbie doll, or a stocking full of candy, but the children of Israel waited for the greatest gift of all – the Messiah. 

And it had been a very long wait. From the dawn of creation, really. 

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel,” God had promised in Genesis 3:15. 

The time between the first messianic promise and its fulfillment was centuries long. Years of glory and years of shame. Times of glorious triumph and times of gut-wrenching tragedy. Moments of fearless faith and moments of faithless fear. 

And then the silence. Four hundred years with no word from God. 

No kingly edict. 

No prophetic visions. 

No holy mandates. 

Just silence. 

And waiting. 

And waiting. 

And waiting. 

Unlike my wait between one Christmas and the next, where the memory of the past season birthed hope and expectation for the next, the Israelites had no memories of their own to carry them through. All they had were their forefathers’ stories and the ancient promises that, one day, a Messiah would come. 

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end” (Is. 9:6-7). 

Yet during that long silence, and that even longer wait between mankind’s fall and Jesus’ incarnation, God was at work. Preparing a place. Preparing a people. Sending the dreaded Romans to conquer most of the known world. Using them to build an infrastructure that would enable early believers to carry the news of the Gospel to the far corners of the globe. 

And then, in the fullness of time, God sent his Son to save the world. 

In the fullness of time. 

I don’t know what you’re waiting for right now. 

A prodigal child to return? 

A dream to be fulfilled? 

A marriage to be healed? 

A loved one to be saved? 

A relationship to be restored? 

A financial burden to be lifted? 

Whatever it is, don’t assume God’s silence means he’s not working. Cling to faith, for

“Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him,” the writer of Hebrews reminds us (11:6). 

You may be in the middle of a long silence, a time when you wonder if God is at work. Don’t stop praying. Continue to search God’s Word for promises and claim them. Enlist prayer warriors to battle with you. 

Never lose hope. Trust that, despite what you see, God is at work. Believe that, in the fullness of time, God will speak life into the silence that fills your ears. He’ll bring to fruition what he promised. 

And when he does, it will be glorious. 

“He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him” (Psalm 126:6). 

What are you waiting for? I’d be honored to pray for you if you leave a comment below. Reading by email? CLICK HERE to visit Refresh online and comment there.