Have you ever become so caught up in the December holiday preparations (parties, end-of-year office and school events, gifts, hospitality, and family gatherings) that you’ve barely had a moment for spiritual reflection? It doesn’t take much for our shopping or our struggles to overwhelm our spiritual formation.

Distraction is an age-old problem. Consequently, centuries ago, the Church established the season of Advent – four Sundays leading up to Christmas – as a time for repentance, readiness, and growing anticipation of the coming of Jesus. This year, Advent begins November 30.

When I was a kid, my friends and I would taunt each other with a twinkle in the eye and say, “When you least expect it, expect it!” We loved to say that.

In many ways, that’s the message of the Old Testament and the prelude to Advent.

For seven centuries, the Israelites suffered at the hands of foreign powers; Assyrians, then Babylonians, then Greeks (Seleucids), and finally the Romans. Israel had felt the ruthless hand of despot after despot. The land was pillaged, the economy ransacked, the people subjugated, and their religion both persecuted and marginalized. Generation after generation knew little more than hardship or political maneuvering.

But if God’s Word had any word of encouragement for the people, it was simply this: “When you least expect it, expect it!” It lay behind the promise to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15 that a Messiah would eventually come and defeat Satan. It was tucked beneath the prophecy in Micah 5:2 that the Messiah would one day come from Bethlehem. But which day? We find it sprinkled everywhere throughout the Old Testament.

“When you least expect it, expect it!”

None of us have suffered relentlessly for seven centuries, but seven weeks, or seven months, or seven years is not out of the question. And it’s easy, when our heads are down, to forget; to forget the promises of God, to forget His faithfulness, to forget His Presence.

As Libby Lane writes in A Good Year, Advent invites us to look “beyond the routine and the obvious…to watch, to expect the unexpected and to live in hope today.”

I like that Advent coincides with winter (in the Northern Hemisphere). The shorter days, longer nights, colder weather, and darker skies all form a profoundly fitting backdrop for the explosion of hope that comes with Christmas.

“When you least expect it, expect it!”

Do you need a break-through at the end of this year? Need redemption? Need a fresh start? Need real hope?

Advent is for any of us who have forgotten to expect the unexpected. God shows up in unexpected ways, unexpected places, and unexpected times…for all of us who look consistently for His coming. How might you look for Him more consistently and more meaningfully this year?