Psalms 40,54; Isaiah 10: 5-19; Matthew 11:2-15
Listen to the author read their meditation and prayer:
Dr. Steven Tomlinson, Advent Meditation
We await the upending of expectations. Waiting begins with a question: Why me? When will this end? Who will save us? The questions we ask determine the answers we can hear, the future we can see.
The questions we ask reveal our true faith, the unquestioned assumptions that hold our world together and weld us to where we are.
We await the subversion of our assumptions — for God is answering deeper questions. Beneath our words, God tills the soil that sustains our souls.
First, you will see the answer, wild and uncouth and appalling — “We have waited all this time for this?” — for what comes bears little resemblance to your ambition.
Yet you recognize the outline, feel a familiar gravity, what you remember from still moments in shadow on a threshold when you were unmistakably not alone.
God’s answer is freedom to question what you’ve taken for granted.
You ask: Are we waiting for someone else? And what do you hope the answer is?
Would you rather get what you want?
Or would you rather be surprised?
For only God’s subversion truly satisfies. Only God’s upending loosens the particular knots of our desires. God’s answer saves us from the questions that enslave us.
See! The world is ending. The least shall be greatest.
What you want is yours already.
God of Surprise, free us from the chains of expectation so we can embrace the gifts that in our brokenness we cannot imagine.
Dr. Steven Tomlinson
Joe and Jesse Crump Visiting Professor of
Leadership Formation and Vocational Pedagogy
SEMINARY OF THE SOUTHWEST
Dr. Steven Tomlinson coaches Wall Street, Fortune 500 and high-tech start up executives and managers. He is a Founding Master Teacher at the Acton School of Business for Entrepreneurship. He taught economics and finance at The University of Texas at Austin where he designed and directed the MBA professional development program. He is also Joe and Jesse Crump Visiting Professor of Leadership Formation and Vocational Pedagogy at the Seminary of the Southwest and an accomplished playwright and performer. His award-winning solo shows have been produced in Austin and off-Broadway.
