Slow-Growing Advent Hope

Here is a fable to illustrate hope.

Imagine a forest populated with ferns and bamboo.

Long before, a farmer had planted seeds to grow the lush ferns and abundant bamboo. The ferns grew quickly, covering the ground like the green shag carpet in the living room of my youth.

However, even after an entire year nothing came of the bamboo.

The following year, the fern continued to grow more vibrant and abundant, but nothing grew from the bamboo seed. This continued for five years, until a tiny bamboo shoot emerged from the earth. It could hardly be seen among the now plentiful fern.

In the sixth year, however, the bamboo sprung up an astounding 60 feet! It had spent five years growing the roots to sustain it.

Hope can be impossible to see. It may be hard to imagine that whatever you are hoping for might work out.

Advent is the time of hoping. In Advent we dare to hope beyond what we might see or even imagine. For instance, God squeezing into the body of a newborn in order to keep us company on earth? We could not begin to hope for God to come this close!

It took many centuries, many millennia, many failed kings, many broken dreams and many misplaced hopes for the slow-growing hope of God to break into the world in Jesus. The astounding mercy of God required an intense root system. Now it is established for eternity.

Do not lose hope, whatever your hopes may be. Roots are slow-growing and hidden. God’s work in your life is at times impossible to see and more impossible to comprehend. There is too much dirt in the way.

At this moment, God is rooting around to position the people you will need into the needed moments in your life. Connections are being made; growth is a quiet set of miracles. Once the roots are ready, you will see. Your hopes are of utmost importance to the God born into the world in the body of hope.

Photo by おにぎり on Unsplash