Seven Advent Practices to Find Quiet in the Bustle

This time of year always has a sense of warmth about it for me. I love the music, the twinkling lights, the baked treats, the nights by the fire, the time with family. It feels cozy and rich in my mind’s eye. But it can also easily feel hectic or stressful. I find myself swept in the bustle, my thoughts set on getting the best deals on gifts, and how I’ll manage getting everything done on my to-do list with a toddler adventuring everywhere.

This is why I love Advent. It creates a space that tells me to stop. It resets my focus. It gives me permission to be still. It also gives me permission to admit that all is not “merry and bright.” It invites me into the dark—into mourning over the ways the brokenness of the world invades my life, my community, and my soul, into anticipation for the day yet to come when all is made right. It reminds me that it was because of this very darkness that Jesus entered the world. It reminds me that his light has shone in that darkness and regardless of what I see, regardless of the wait, that light will not be overcome.

I love the Christmas season, don’t get me wrong, but I’m realizing that the stress of the hustle and bustle is not good for my soul. As I try to resist the stress it brings, I’ve thought about some practical steps we can take to cultivate an Advent spirit and create space for stillness and reflection during this season. Though it’s by no means exhaustive, I wanted to share that list with you.

1. Use a tool for reflection. There are many wonderful tools you can use for reflection. The key with these isn’t about doing more or finding yet another routine to be distracted by. These resources are intended to serve us as we attempt to train our vision in the right direction. You can look for whatever tool will best help you and your family. Here are some that I have found helpful.

Music: At least once during the Advent season I take time to listen to Andrew Peterson’s album Behold the Lamb of God. (And I mean listen, as in lay on the couch with my eyes closed, press play, and stir only after the last note sounds.) I’ve talked before about why I find that album to be meaningful.

Devotional reading: Many organizations and churches now put out daily advent devotionals that are great. I also recommend a collection of sermons by Fleming Rutledge called Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ.

Jesse tree: This is something we’ve decided to start doing as our kiddo gets older. It’s an ancient concept that focuses on the lineage of Jesus. The tree begins bare, and each day an ornament is added that represents some aspect of the big-picture story of Christ’s coming. You can read a corresponding Scripture passage (or read it as a family). By Christmas Day, the tree is full of these ornaments. There are many derivations, so you can adjust the Scripture passages and the ornaments to what you desire. For example, the ornaments can be simple paper printouts that you can color—or you could make or buy your own set. You can learn more and find a recommended guide here.

2. Spend some time in the Old Testament. Advent focuses on waiting, anticipation, and longing for promises to be fulfilled. Try reading some of the Old Testament prophets each day, particularly passages looking forward to the coming of the Messiah. Sit with the long, long wait of the coming of Christ. You can cobble together your own set of readings, choose one prophet, or use a curated guide. I recently had this one recommended to me that uses the minor prophets.

3. Practice a (spiritual) discipline. At the end of the day, cutting out the time for stillness, solitude, and reflection is a discipline. As with all spiritual disciplines, it’s about intentionally engaging in a practice that creates a space for you to be formed by the Holy Spirit. Some spiritual disciplines are on-the-go or communal. But some just require us to slam on the brakes and stop. We say no to the tyranny of the urgent and make the counter-cultural decision to be still, to not do, to be quiet. This will look different for each of us. It might be a pocket of time in the morning or in the evening. It may be making a day-long retreat or setting aside a day as a family to just stay at home together. It will require discipline and it may require sacrifice—but isn’t this true of most of the good things in life?

4. Say no. This is a hard one for many of us, but it is one of the foundational ways we can build spaces of stillness into this season of the year. I’m not saying you can’t participate in any of the festivities. But do you have to go to all of those parties and cookie swaps? Do you have to participate in the children’s program and the Christmas Eve service and sing that solo? Or is it possible to say no to a few of those events? Saying no does not make you a Scrooge. It means you’re making an intentional step to clear some space.

5. Simplify. There are many aspects of this season that don’t have to be as dramatic or over-the-top as we sometimes make them. Do you really need to make twelve different types of pie or forty-six dozen Christmas cookies? Do I need to host and cook everything from scratch and make my own greenery? Sometimes instead of saying no or cutting something out completely we just need to find a way to simplify what we’re doing. Maybe you have a potluck instead of cooking everything yourself. Maybe you use more gift bags and less wrapping paper. Maybe you buy the pie or the greenery or use boxed mashed potatoes. Simple may be different—but it is not bad.

6. Take the focus off the presents. Generosity is a wonderful thing—and a biblical value. There is nothing wrong with generosity expressed in a thoughtfully chosen gift for someone you love. But all too often, Christmas presents devolve beyond generosity. We can easily become swept away by consumerism that tells us to buy more, that we need the newest gadgets, that turns all of our attention on material possessions. This sort of gift-giving or list-generating produces fruit of a very different sort. We may become envious or judgmental about those who have more disposable income than we do—or have less but spend beyond their means. We may find self-righteous pity for those who have less materially than we do. We may find seeds of greed in our heart. We may be distracted by comparison. I often hear that this season isn’t about the presents—but what practical steps do we take to make it clear that we believe this?

7. Ask an important litmus test question. Is this going to help focus me on the wonder of the coming of Christ to our world? Will it cultivate hope in my heart for his return as the glorious King? Is this going to bring me joy, bless others, be a source of rest, or prepare me to celebrate Christ’s birth? How is this activity or practice forming me, what fruit does it produce, and what does it reveal about the state of my heart and my priorities?

We are all different. We’re in different stages of life. We have different gifts and callings. For some, one activity or practice might be an appropriate decision to cultivate an Advent spirit, for another it would not. This is why we need to use questions like these to reflect personally as we decide what to do and what not to do. So we ask each time - what is this doing and what will this do in my soul?

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When Stress has Roots in My Heart

The weather here is finally crisp enough to hint at winter, and the mornings grow more frequent when I open my windows to see a glittering haze of frost on the yard. I pause as I walk past the vents in our house, eager for the warmth on my toes. By the time evening comes, I’m ready for a warm blanket, a fire, and a cup of steaming tea between my hands.

At least in my part of the world, as the weather grows colder, we begin to think about the holidays. Our family has already started the coordinating of plans, and as I am accosted by sales and advertisements accompanied by jingling bells, I’m feeling the pressure to begin our own quests for thoughtful gifts for loved ones. The season from now until the end of the year is a marathon of preparations, feasts, and family activities as the holidays follow each other in close succession. It’s delightful. But it can also be stressful.

It’s such a shame, really, that a season that should be filled with joy and warmth can be tainted by stress and busyness. It’s a shame that it’s all too easy to lose sight of the invitation to give thanks, to remember the coming of Christ to our world, to reflect on the past year. So as our toes are just beginning to dip into this season, I’ve been thinking about what within my heart, mind, and schedule can be altered to reduce that stress and focus on the right things.

In this timely season, I’ve been reading Richella Parham’s new book Mythical Me: Finding Freedom from Constant Comparison. One phrase has especially stuck with me as I’ve thought about the holiday season (and hospitality as a whole). The words struck a nerve as I read them and are now copied on a notecard and taped in my kitchen. They summarize a lesson I’ve been in the process of learning and relearning for years: You were made to bless, not to impress.

You see, some of the holiday craze is related to overloaded schedules and overcommitment, but some of it has to do with my heart. What if all of my actions were motivated by a desire to “bless and not impress”? What if I can shake off the motivation of comparing myself? Or the nagging thought of other people doing that comparison for me?

I clean my house, yes, and make it a warm and welcoming place, but not because of a concern of what people will think but rather as a means to bless them. I take time to thoughtfully select and purchase gifts, yes, as a means of blessing and (hopefully) delight, but I let go of the fears of projected judgments of what they’ll think of me, the gift-giver. I make food—my jobs during the holidays are cinnamon rolls (for Christmas morning) and apple pies (as much as possible)—but instead of worrying about whether it’s award-winning, I’m focused on the fruits of my oven as a means of sharing with those I love. Do you see the difference?

I know that not all of you are like this (at least I hope not), but also I know that so many of us can fall into the comparison trap. We spend so much time worrying about what other people think of us, worried if we’ll measure up. This anxiety is fueled by an unrealistic projection of what “perfection” might be (and an assumption that everyone else is holding us to that standard and a fear that if they see we fall short they’ll somehow love or value us less). In my experience, this adds fuel to my stress, not because it puts more on my plate (though sometimes it does) but because it adds mental and emotional pressure to the things already on my plate. It’s a vicious cycle. And it’s rooted in far too much navel-gazing.

So, as we enter this season of the year, a season in which there are so many opportunities to be a blessing—through giving, through feeding, through hosting family and friends—let this be the attitude of all of our hearts: You were made to bless, not to impress. And may we all find freedom in this truth.

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I’d recommend Richella’s book, Mythical Me, to any of you who struggle with comparison. I found it to be encouraging—and she offers some practical steps to take to break free from it. You can find it wherever books are sold.

Dying With A Smile On My Face

I can’t say I’ve ever been a big shopper. I’m the friend who’s ready long before everyone else, aisles perused, selections tried on, decisions made, waiting outside of the dressing room while everyone else finishes up. This efficiency has only grown now that I have a tiny companion. She grows restless strapped to my chest or nestled in the cart in front of me. I keep moving, make my selections decisively, and go through the self-checkout when the lines are long.

On this particular day, we braved one of those big box stores in which I could get everything on my list in one stop. Groceries, toiletries, and a few items for our new living situation were piled in the cart out of reach of my daughter’s curious hands as I briskly walked to the front of the store. In the corral of self-scanning stations, I overheard a customer teasing the clerk on duty. She paused her roving amongst the beeping scanners and rustle of plastic bags to return his sarcasm with some of her own. The twinkle in her eye told me they knew each other. This wasn’t the first time they’d had such an exchange. He left, purchases in hand, with a final quip, and she continued her rounds. Her back bore the gentle arc of age. She was petite, like my grandmother, with a light in her eyes like my memories of her.

She waved a wrinkled hand at the man’s disappearing back. “They’re so mean to me.”

For a moment, I thought I’d misread the situation. Then she laughed, “Aww no, they’re great. They’re just great. I’ve known them for years down at the Elks Club.”

I was quickly sliding along barcodes. The baby was squirming, reminding me that it was naptime. I listened with partial attention, trying not to be rude, but unsure if she was actually talking to me or just to the air. I glanced over my shoulder as I placed plastic tubs of baby food in the bag. She looked me in the eye and kept talking.

“You know, I’ll be eighty-six years old this year, and I try to find something to laugh about every day. Yeah, I know hard things happen in life and things don’t always go like we want, and some people think that gives them the right to grumble and be all miserable and nasty. But I’m old, and I know life is too short to live like that. I just brush those things off and don’t think about them and find something to laugh about instead. When I die, I’m going to do it with a smile on my face.”

With her final statement, she gave an emphatic nod and what I now surmised to be her characteristic grin. I couldn’t help but smile back at her, and I left the store that day still wearing that smile as I walked to my car. Her outlook on life was contagious. But on the way home, I started wondering if I could live like that all the time.

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It is not difficult to see that life can be hard. We face the effects of its broken, not-yet-fully redeemed state every day. The newsreels remind us of conflicts, poverty, and injustice on a global scale. We see it in our own lives in sickness and ailing bodies, in severed relationships and the loss of those we love. Violence, want, and the delay of justice aren’t contained in one part of the globe or a particular neighborhood. They come knocking at our doors as well in myriad forms. Who among us can escape suffering and tears?

I do not believe faithfulness to Christ or a firm grasp on joy demand that we ignore this reality of the pain our existence can bring. We need look no further in the Bible than the Psalms of lament or a book such as Lamentations to see that we are given permission to mourn and to rail against the ways life is not as it should be. We do not need to simply brush our pain aside, to ignore it, to laugh it off. We can sit with our grief, rage, and tears and call it what it is. In fact, we are given permission to bring that grief and rage and those tears in astonishing honesty and rawness to God himself. Repression is not a sanctified action.

And yet. (There is always an “and yet,” isn’t there?) And yet, even in these places in the Bible that give voice to our deepest pain and longings, there is a space held open for rejoicing. This joy does not come because we ignore the parts of life that are hard. It comes because our faith gives us comfort in the midst of a life that is hard. We have hope that is anchored in who God is and in what He has promised. As I heard someone say recently, “I read the end of the book, and that’s why I can keep smiling.”

My store clerk was right—there is no space for grumbling and misery in the face of life’s difficulties. She was right that there is always space for joy. But that joy doesn’t come from blinding ourselves to the world’s ills or numbing our hearts against the painful situations that may come our way. Joy comes from a deep-seated belief that God is who He says He is and He will do what He said He will do. Faith allows us to stare down the hard parts of life while joy still takes root in our souls. This joy is realistic but irrepressible. It is joy that can survive in the dark. It is joy that allows us to die with a smile on our face.

Weakness Under the Spotlight

I stood in her kitchen, with the connecting presence of a mutual friend. She leaned into the kitchen cabinet with the ease of being at home. The warmth of the wood extended an invitation to stay awhile, to sit down with a cup of tea.

I could very much use a cup of tea in someone’s kitchen. We’d been wading through transition, plans, deadlines, and little sleep for months now. “They” say to only subject yourself to three major life events a year. Our list was six points long already, and autumn had only just begun. We could feel the weight of it all. Most of those events were good things—or at least good in part—but even the good piled on heavy. We were tired. Stress nibbled at the sleep our young daughter yielded to us, her nights and naps disrupted by changing places and schedules. My mind tried to keep track of all the details, the bills, the appointments, the tasks at hand, but it was hazy. My usually disciplined mind struggled to remember. I wrote lists and used them as an anchor for my days. It was the only way I knew how to wade through. I needed rest—for body, mind, and soul.

I tried to explain. I talked about our transition, about our life-event overload, about how ready we were to slow down, to settle, to be at home once again.

She smiled kindly. “Well, God puts us in situations like this…” (My mind was finishing her sentence. I started nodding my head.) “…to show us how strong we are.”

In the moment, I didn’t know what to say. They were not the words I was expecting. They weren’t the words my heart needed to hear. Caught off guard, without the relationship to offer the reasons I disagreed with her biblically, I smiled politely and left it alone. But since that afternoon, I’ve thinking about her words.

If all of this is about how strong I am, I’m doomed. There are days I am propelled by a mere combination of duty and adrenaline, habit and love. It is sheer willpower, sheer commitment that keeps me going. There are days I cry from self-pity, I snap at my husband, and I don’t have the energy to call that friend I know I need to catch up with. If all of this is about how strong I am, I’m failing the test. This season is merely showing my own weakness. It’s full onstage, under a blinding spotlight for all to see.

Thank God, this whole enterprise of life is never about how strong I am. It’s always about the strength and mercy and grace of the God I serve. Always, always about Him. It’s about how His strength is made perfect in my weakness. It’s about how He always enters the mess to bless us undeservedly with His presence. It’s about how His grace extends over every lost temper, every moment of selfishness, every doubt of his provision.

As we read the Bible, we find again and again that God uses people who are weak. It’s part of the way He works—taking a unlikely person or an impossible situation and using it to show His glory. He made a post-menopausal woman a mother (Gen. 17, 21) and a disgraced outcast the first evangelist (John 4). He made a murderer into a songwriter whose words have blessed people for generations (see the Psalms). With the sound of His voice, He brought blood and oxygen flowing through the body of a days-old corpse (John 11). We read these stories in Scripture. We see them today.

In seasons when all is well, I am easily lured by a sense of my own self-sufficiency. It’s easy to think I have the power to keep it all together, to orchestrate the smooth running of my life, to meet everyone’s needs, to effortlessly keep up with all of life’s demands. But when challenges hit, when sleep runs low, when I’m swept up in transition or grief or sickness, that’s when I realize what a farce that idea is. That’s when I come face to face with my inability and my weakness. It’s when I acknowledge once again my dependence on God for all of my needs, for my strength, for the Holy Spirit’s empowerment to live a life of love and faith.

I hate the seasons when I feel out of control. I’d really rather the “gospel” that says they are intended to show me my own strength. But my soul desperately craves the Gospel that tells me I don’t have to just pull myself together, to find a way to be good enough, or to put on a show when I can’t so people don’t think less of me. I need to hear the Gospel that takes the focus off my weakness and turns my eyes to a Father who loves me as I am and as I’m becoming and to a Savior who provides all the strength that I lack. This is truly Good News.

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This post is part of the series “The Gospel According to My Hairdresser.” I often hear personal “gospels” as I interact with people around me, in the messages they declare about life and faith and the maxims they find to be “good news.” This series explores these moments personally and biblically as I come to terms with how these “gospels” influence our lives as disciples and how they measure up to the Gospel of grace found in Jesus.

A Prayer for My Feet

I sat on a flimsy plastic stool, the same sort I’d propped on to eat street noodles a few days before. My eyes were closed, elbows resting on knees as I sat in a small circle of praying Christians. It was a little oasis during my week, a moment when I could relax my guard and enjoy the presence of other believers. I was enveloped by the prayers spoken into the room. There was peace here.

The middle-aged man beside me was praying, asking for the Lord’s protection, for provision, for wisdom in our work. He stopped suddenly. A pause? A moment for thought? An abruptly ended prayer?

I was confused when I opened my eyes slightly to peek at his face. It was contorted with emotion, his mouth tight, brow furrowed. The corners of his eyes were wet. What had he said that evoked such overwhelming emotion?

He continued, his voice thick. Father, let your Kingdom come in this place.

I’d heard these words oft-repeated in the Lord’s Prayer but never with so much desperation. Never before had I seen this petition for the Kingdom to come “on earth as it is in heaven” to bring a grown man to tears. I’d never thought its implications could be so profound. I couldn’t shake it.

I took his prayer with me to the streets of that remote corner of Asia: Father, let your Kingdom come. When I returned home at the end of that summer, I took it to the halls of my small Christian college, where so many of us were plagued with depression and perfectionism: Father, let your Kingdom come. It followed me to Central America, to rooms filled with sleeping foster children: Father, let your Kingdom come. It came with me to New England, and I carried it with me as I walked down our tree spotted street into town: Father, let your Kingdom come in this place.

Along the way, I’ve found this prayer shaping me, as our prayers so often do. It wasn’t merely a request thrown to the heavens. It became a moment in which I positioned myself for God to mold me. It was a moment in which He met me.

You can only pray that prayer so long until you start asking questions about what the Kingdom of God looks like or how we recognize its coming. When we pray “let your Kingdom come,” it’s only a matter of time until we start asking what role we play in that request.

I grew up in a tradition that largely understood the Kingdom of God as a future other-worldly reality. It was about the salvation of souls, and it was something to be escaped to when the Kingdom’s King returned (or when I went to heaven when I died).

But over the years, as this little prayer burrowed deeper into my soul, I began to meditate on what it meant for heaven to come to earth. The hope of New Creation captured my heart. I began to long for and keep my eyes open not only for the Kingdom that is not yet, but also the Kingdom that is already breaking into our world, the Kingdom I have been welcomed into, the Kingdom I am an ambassador for.

In his book Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright describes our current actions as signs of the Kingdom that has arrived in Jesus and foretastes of all that is to come. We are to be “new-creation people here and now, bringing signs and symbols of the kingdom to birth on earth as in heaven. The resurrection of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit mean that we are called to bring real and effective signs of God’s renewed creation to birth even in the midst of the present age.”

We long for the day when the Kingdom comes fully and finally to earth. But until then, we embody the nature of the Kingdom and seek to bring its marks to our spheres of influence. We seek justice and reconciliation, truth and peace, freedom and wholeness, the restoration and healing of bodies and of souls. We work and “build for” (Wright’s language) the Kingdom precisely because of our deeply rooted hope that our prayers for the Kingdom to come will one day be answered completely.

I’ve learned that praying for the Kingdom of God to come to earth as it is in heaven is not a prayer that can remain in the seclusion of a prayer closet. We carry it with us when engage in the work of reconciliation or when we care for trafficking victims. It’s there when we care for the homeless and welcome the poor, when we fight to protect the dignity and life of all humankind. It surrounds us as we have spiritual conversations with a non-Christian friend or we disciple a fellow Christian into a deeper understanding of God’s love for them. It leads us as we seek the good and flourishing of our neighborhoods and cities. It’s a prayer we pray on our feet.