A Facebook Advent: On Waiting and God

I belong to that dying breed that is still (relatively) young and had remained untouched by Facebook until very recently. During the first few days of my Facebook existence, I was astounded by the almost immediate responses to my “add friend” request, with some of them coming within seconds. I find that the rapid-response nature of Facebook has somewhat conditioned my behaviour, as well.

I feel an unspoken pressure to “like” or respond to Facebook activities as soon as possible, and within one or two days at most. Any delayed responses that take longer somehow feel like they belong to the stalkers’ category: Why did you “like” my picture three days after I posted it? Did you go out of your way to check me out and see what I was up to? I myself have also come to expect quick responses from others. For instance, I wondered why it took several days for some of my friends to like the picture of me and my adorable niece. I no longer have the patience to wait.

The kind of waiting Facebook is teaching me to do is not the waiting of Advent, our communal preparation for the birth of Jesus. Readings from Scripture foretold the coming of Christ. The people of God has been waiting for the Messiah to arrive for a long, long time. The point is not that the wait makes the coming of Christ more “worth it”, as it is not a difference between instant and delayed gratification. Rather, it is to show the reality that God is never on-tap for us.

God is always faithful, but God does not operate according to our demand. We simply cannot expect that God be always there for us on our own terms. Waiting on God through perseverance has its own merits. It puts us in our place in a good way. It preserves the proper relationship between Creator and creature. God initiates and we respond. God has freely loved us, and we are called to freely respond. This is how grace works. The on-tap attitude flips the script and turns us into gods. If this mentality is hard-wired into us, then our expectation of God will also be affected. We may understand in our heads that “God’s time is always perfect”, but we want God to give us an answer. Right. Now. If we cannot wait to respond or for a response, we won’t be able to wait for God, either. Let this be a call for re-calibration of our own attitudes, so that we become more in tune with how God works in our lives.