CHRISTIAN COMMENT What are you waiting for?

Now, in my book, there’s two kinds of waiting.

There’s the frustrating kind: waiting to be put through to a human being on a company phone system, waiting to be served at a busy checkout, waiting for a doctor’s appointment and there’s the nice kind, which involves anticipating or planning for something.

I like anticipating Christmas (though I dislike the hassle and queues involved in preparing for it).

I always wait to eat my favourite chocolates in a selection box because I like to save the best until last and I like those moments just before a play or a show begins, when the excitement mounts, as we wait for a story to unfold or a spectacle to begin.

Sometimes waiting is an enjoyable thing to do.

What I really like about the Christmas advert though, is that, at the end, we see the little boy wasn’t impatiently waiting to get his presents, he wanted to be able to give his present.

And that’s another happy waiting experience.

The anticipation of delight on the face of someone you love when they open your carefully chosen present.

Christmas is really all about giving.

It began with a baby born in a stable, which the Bible describes as God’s gift to us.

For through this child, God has made it possible for everyone to be able to know him personally.

It’s a gift that was planned and anticipated for a long time.

The Bible tells us that the world had to wait until “the set time had fully come”. But now, it is ours to receive.

You may have to do a lot of waiting in the coming weeks as you prepare and plan for Christmas, but you don’t have to wait any longer to unpack God’s gift.

You can open it now.

Jackie Harris is editor of Woman Alive