ripening

Opening Prayer: O Lord, help us to wait patiently and expectantly for you.  Give us the assurance that as we wait you are up to something very good in us.  You are ripening us and making us ready for the time of your coming. 

Scripture: Mark 13:33

Journal: How will you know when it is time?  How will you wait in the meantime?  What is God doing in and around you in the process?

Reflection: “Be on guard!  Be alert!  You do not know when that time will come.” (Mark 13:33)

What an interesting word choice.  Instead of the word chronos, which refers to time in terms of days or hours or minutes, Mark uses the word kairos, which refers to time in terms of fullness, rightness, or readiness.  Kairos is not a time that can be specifically determined by a clock, but a time that can only be determined by a thing’s ripeness.

Thus, during this season, when we are instructed to wait for the Lord, we are not doing nothing; we are actually doing the most important something that we can do.  We are making time and space for whatever God is doing within or around us to come to fruition.  We are ripening.  We are becoming all that we were intended to be.

So wait, Dear Ones, with patience and confidence, with courage and hope.  For God is at work in and through and around you, producing a harvest that is beautiful and bountiful.

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Help us, O Lord, to wait for you with patience and peace, with courage and with hope.  Help us to rest assured that when the time is ripe and our souls are ready, you will come.  Amen.