Have you ever been to a walk-in clinic? If you are like me, when you arrive you scope out the room to estimate how long your wait is going to be. If you walk into a waiting room with only one other person there, it’s like hitting the jackpot, right? A full room of people is enough to make your heart sink. But you decide to wait. After you find a seat (hopefully not beside the one that is coughing and spewing) you pull out your phone or book and settle in. But if you are like me, you are intensely aware of who is in the room. The ones that were there before you arrived, while making mental notes of the ones arriving after you. And then you wait.

Have you ever had the experience in which you knew for certain that people who came in after you were being seen before you?

It happened to me the other day. As I sat there, I watched some people come in, see the doctor and then leave. This happened more than once and I began thinking, “Did they forget me? Did my file fall on the floor? What’s going on? Have I been overlooked?”

After watching yet another person come and go…I decided enough was enough.

“Excuse me,” I whispered. “I’m wondering if perhaps I have been bumped off your list, I’ve been waiting here quite a while and…”

“What’s your name?”, the receptionist asked, cutting me off.

I gave her my particulars. Sure enough, she said, “Oh. I have you listed here as having already seen the doctor. Computers!”

Guess what? I was the next one in.

I was waiting and waiting, and I was overlooked. The reality is, in life, that can happen. People are overlooked all the time. Overlooked for a promotion, or not acknowledged for a job well done. Then there are the forgotten birthdays or anniversaries. I am sure that you, like me, have been on both ends of that story. We’ve been overlooked and we’ve overlooked. We’re human. It happens.

But please hear this: it doesn’t happen with God!

God knows us (Jeremiah 1:5). God sees us (Psalm 139). God loves us (Romans 5:8, John 3:16, Romans 8:35-39). And in our waiting for whatever, though we might feel overlooked by God, we are not (Hebrew 6:10). God is with us! (Joshua 1:9, Isaiah 41:10, Matthew 28:20, Roman 8:38-39).

This week we enter into the season of ADVENT, a time of waiting. Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas and ends on Christmas Eve. In the waiting we prepare for the coming (or “advent”) of the Christ child at Christmas. Join us as we come to worship.