16. Eagerly Waiting: Finding Joy in Advent and Beyond

In this episode of Courageous Retirement, host Vona Johnson shares her thoughts about waiting, which resonates deeply with those who realize that much of life involves waiting, and retirement is not excluded. She draws parallels between this waiting and the anticipation of the Christmas season, making the experience particularly relatable to believers. 

Vona highlights the numerous milestones and periods of waiting throughout our lives, from professional goals to personal aspirations. She uses biblical examples to explore how waiting is a significant part of the believer's journey, emphasizing the importance of faith, patience, and trust in God's perfect timing. This emphasis reassures the audience that their waiting is not in vain and instills a sense of hope for the future. 

Listeners are encouraged to find joy and purpose in the waiting, and Vona provides practical ways to use this time productively. This advice empowers them to make the most of their seasons of waiting, especially if one is waiting for a loved one to come to Christ. 

For those who struggle with the idea of entering the holidays and sharing time with those with differing beliefs and values, Vona introduces resources to help navigate difficult conversations with grace and love during the holiday season and an opportunity to maintain faith-driven habits into the new year. 

00:00 Introduction: A Lifetime of Waiting 
00:59 The Concept of Waiting in Faith 
01:55 Historical Waiting: Biblical Examples 
05:25 The Season of Advent 
09:39 Encouragement in the Waiting 
11:17 Conclusion and Upcoming Episodes

Scripture referenced: Hebrews 9:28.

Bible Study referenced: The Marvel and Miracle ofAdvent Bible Study by Lisa Harper and Christine Caine

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Thank you for stopping by today! Remember to Engage Your Faith and Live Your More as you reap the benefits of Courageous Retirement!

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Transcript

0:00

By the time we've reached retirement, we have spent a lifetime waiting. We wait until we graduate from school. We wait until we meet our spouse. We wait until we have our children and each one is so precious to us. We wait for that perfect job. When we get the perfect job, we wait for the promotion, the increase in wages. The new opportunity for challenges. Literally, we wait 30 to 40 years as we worked through our careers so that we can retire. Each time we reached one of our milestones. We set another goal. We created another dream to work for, even after we retired. We look at things and we try and find that perfect balance between feeling fulfilled in doing something and resting. All the time we are thinking of our loved ones and we are waiting for some of them to find the Lord. And that can be the longest wait, can't it? Today, I'm going to talk about waiting. The waiting we do as believers. And I want you to stick around to the end because I'm going to talk about my number one advice on the best way to wait. I hope you'll join us.

Speaker: 1:12

Do you fear what lies beyond retirement? What if it's a gateway to a life filled with purpose, meaning, and adventure rather than an end? Discover peace and fulfillment as you boldly enter this new chapter in Courageous Retirement, a Christian podcast. I'm your host, author and coach, Vanna Johnson. Let's get started.

1:32

Sometimes the waiting can feel like eternity. Can't it? It feels like that thing we want so bad, whether it's work-related or health-related or relationship related. It just feels like it's never coming. And sometimes we can work so hard to make something happen and it doesn't make a difference. We still end up waiting. Imagine what it must have been like when God's people had to wait 400 years between the old Testament, the book of Malachi and when Jesus came 400 years later, it was radio silence. God didn't leave any more messages. There weren't any new prophets. There was nothing new, but still they believed and they didn't give up. Of course during that time they continue to live their lives. They didn't just sit on the sidelines until God opened up. That would have been ridiculous after 400 years. But they continue to do what they knew that they were to do. They continued to follow the directions that God gave them in his Word and they continued to believe. As they lived their lives, they studied scripture, they shared the stories. They didn't have Bibles like we have today. So they shared stories among themselves. And they just kept up the hope. I'm sure it was difficult at times, but they didn't give up. Behind the scenes, God was working out the details. And sometimes it's hard to imagine that, but think about at the end of that 400 year period. God had made a plan and it involved an 80 year old woman having a son who would be the messenger to tell the world about Jesus's arrival. But it also involved a 15 year old girl. So he had his perfect timing. Had to be amazing to have this 80 year old woman in this 15 year old Virgin come together. They were related. And to come together and to share the joy of knowing that they were going to bring God's message to the world. They were finally going to break the silence. Behind the scenes, God was preparing Zachariah and Elizabeth. He was preparing Mary and Joseph and all of the players in the world, the wise men even were back there studying the stars and watching and waiting for this return that was promised in the old Testament. Only in God's perfect plan and in God's perfect timing, could all of these things line up at the same time so these two cousins could come together. And produce young men that would change the world. Yes. Waiting is hard work. There are times when God puts plans and ideas and dreams on our heart. And we will rush in and try and do the things to make those dreams come true. And it doesn't happen whether we misunderstood or we got the timing off, or we did what we were supposed to do. And he was using that behind the scene. Sometimes we'll never know, but it can be really frustrating when God gives us a desire. And then it just seems to fizzle. Nothing seems to happen. We often wonder how we could have been so far off track. What's beautiful is that nothing is wasted in God's economy. He uses all of our wrong steps are misguided actions. And sometimes are out and out sin. To bring about his plans for his glory. Not only does he use those who love and follow him to complete his plans, sometimes he uses. People who don't believe in him to help further his plans. Throughout history, evil Kings, sinful people, and even unsuspecting nonbelievers have been used to accomplish God's plans in his time. And he still does that today. I'm reminded of this as we enter into the season of advent. We are in that season of waiting for Christ's return, just like they were waiting for Christ to come the first time, all those years ago. We get really excited about advent and we decorate our homes and we trim the trees and put up the lights and we prepare delicious foods and delectable treats and plan gatherings to come together to share the joy and the anticipation of Christ and his birth. Isn't it ironic that even people who don't claim to love Jesus, get in on the excitement in the planning and the anticipation. They may not call it advent. They may not celebrate Christ's birth, but they celebrate Christmas. What a blessing it is that in this festive season, All feel the love and the joy and the peace, and they feel welcome, I pray, they feel welcome in Christ's home as we celebrate his birth together. Year after year, we go through the process of putting up the tree, trimming our house with lights and put up our nativities, we have Christmas programs and plan parties and celebrate this joyous time of the year. And every year, we take down the trees. We put all the trimming away. And we. Just go on with our lives. Long after the candles have burned out and the toys have broken and the food has been put away, we continue to wait. I pray for you that there is still joy in the waiting. That you will continue to meet with God's people. And find encouragement and hope and in just coming together and waiting for him. I pray that you get the encouragement and the support that you need as sometimes this journey just gets too long and too hard. In a study that I'm doing. The Marvel in the Miracle of Advent by Christine Kane and Lisa Harper. We are reminded of a quote from. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The celebration of advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul. Who know themselves to be poor and imperfect. And who looked forward to something greater to come. I wrote this paragraph in my book called A different View about the season of advent. As believers. We all love Christmas because it helps us focus on Christ and the incredible gift he is to us. We use advent the weeks leading up to Christmas to prepare for Christ coming. Both by remembering his birth and by looking forward to his return. When we think of it in those terms. Every day, we live life in the in-between(another term I use in the book in a different chapter) is the season of advent. With that in mind. Let's remember that Jesus humbled himself. And he has already saved us from sin death in the power of Satan. Let us not grow weary as we wait for Christ to return and forget that even now I'm in our grief, fear and uncertainty. That God's actions are fulfilling his promises to us. Please keep the faith, trust God, and remember, whatever battle the world, and specifically you, are in, Christ won the fight for us all on the cross. I pray that you will use this season of waiting to love those in your life enough to speak truth to them in love. If that seems daunting to you, I encourage you to purchase Difficult Conversations. For only$17. You get access to several short podcast sessions that you can listen to while you're preparing all of your festivities. This short series will help you engage in conversations with everyone who joins you at your holiday table. Also when you purchase that, you get the opportunity to join in on a special live session with me in January. Where we will discuss how we can carry the habits of faith forward into the new year. That's only available during the holiday season. That's really a great opportunity to really step into living out our faith and having difficult conversations. Let's face it. Waiting for something that we longed for can be really hard. We can get discouraged, frustrated. And we may even want to give up and just do it on our own and not wait for God anymore. But don't fall into that temptation. Lean into Jesus. Ask him to help you. Read scripture. Pray to him, ask him how he wants you to take the next step. And then when you do take that step, let go of the outcome, knowing that he will use you in exactly the way that he needs to to fulfill his purpose. You never know what amazing things God is working out in the background. I love how it stated in Hebrews 9: 28. It says. Christ died only once as a sacrifice. To take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins again. This time, he will bring salvation to all those who are eagerly waiting on him. So as we are in this season of waiting. And really aren't we always, in this season of waiting? I just pray that you will remember that Jesus has already won. That there isn't anything that we can do. That will take away his love for us and that we want to bring as many people with us when he does come back for us. So I pray that you will enjoy this season of advent, whether it's leading up to Christmas this season. Or any other time of the year, just stay strong in the waiting. Engage with people who love Jesus. And be encouraged. Don't give up hope. Never ever give up hope. I hope that you're enjoying courageous retirement. I am just so blessed that you were here and I just thank you for your time. You may have noticed that the episodes are a little shorter. It's a busy season and Hey, I'm retired. So I do want to get messages out to you consistently, but I also want to focus on the things that are happening in my life. And you're busy too. I get that. This is going to be our second to the last episode of season one of courageous retirement. The next episode in two weeks, I'm going to share a book with you. It's actually a children's book. And I interviewed the author on Longing for More years ago. But sometimes we get a book that changes the way we look at things. I hope that A Different View is that way for you. If you've read that, if not, I hope you'll consider doing so. But this book changed the way that I looked at forgiveness and Christmas and. How we interact with our little ones. So, if you're in retirement age, probably you don't have little ones at home but I pray that you have little ones in your life, whether they're grandchildren or children that you teach in Sunday school or neighbors or whatever. So I hope you'll come back in two weeks and I'm going to tell you a little bit about the author and how it came to be, but I think it's a great way to step into the Christmas season and just remember what it's all about. I look forward to seeing you back here in two weeks. Again, enjoy this beautiful season of advent and I pray that you will engage your faith. You will live your more and enjoy the immense benefits of courageous retirement. God bless.