Whether in its moment-by-moment, daily, or seasonal rhythms, creation is called upon to surrender. A galloping stream surrenders to its bank, sandstone cliffs are brutally carved by relentless wind, and that same wind eventually comes up against an immovable granite outcropping and is forced to change course. The mounting ocean wave topples, the grizzly lumbers into its cave to give way to sleep, and the reluctant leaf dons fiery hues and eventually succumbs to a cyclical reality of autumn-turned-winter.

God gives us a picture of rhythms and seasons in his intricate creation. As we wait, watch, and notice, we will see that there are times for everything, and purposes for everything. Despite sometimes putting up a fight, nature everntually surrenders to the greater plan of a God whose ways are unfathomable.

“There is an occasion for everything,
and a time for every activity under heaven…

[God] has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in [people’s] hearts, but no one can discover the work God has done from beginning to end…

Whatever is, has already been, and whatever will be, already is.”   

(Ecclesiastes 3:1, 11-12, 15, CSB)

Even though we may not agree with the parameters or circumstances of the surrender before us, we can trust in a God who orchestrates his plan in perfection; the Creator has put every rhythm into place and sustains all things by his mighty arm. He has made everything proper in its time. Our task is to release our expectations—allowing our course to change, our lives to be carved, the things we have built to topple, our bodies to succumb to rest—and receive the gift of what is. Of what is becoming.

This Advent season I find myself in a place of releasing, of asking God to help me give way to the what-is of what he has ordained for me. Does Advent have you in a place of release? Of waiting for what you long for, but acknowledging that you may need to surrender those imaginations, at least for a season? You can rest in the safety of our God whose ways are far beyond our own:

Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!”  (Romans 11:33, NASB)

Photo: Hingham, MA, 2024.