Advent Devotions

Today’s Theme: Joy in the Waiting

Scripture: “Weeping may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” – Psalm 30:5

Well might we pray, “Lord, let your joy be my strength.”

Advent is a season marked by waiting—waiting in darkness, waiting for hope, waiting for the promised light. Psalm 30:5 captures that tension with aching honesty: “Weeping may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”

We know the night. We’ve sat in hospital rooms and stood at gravesides. We’ve waited on phone calls that never came, answers that never arrived, changes that felt endlessly delayed. The psalm doesn't pretend the night doesn’t exist—but it also doesn’t let the night have the final word.

During World War II, a group of prisoners were being transported by train through the Alps. The journey took them through a long, dark tunnel. As the train entered the tunnel, the carriage fell silent. One child began to cry in the darkness.

But suddenly, the voice of his father cut through:
"Don’t worry—my hand is still here."
The boy grabbed it and grew quiet, comforted not by the light, but by the presence that promised the light would return.

Advent reminds us that we are not alone in the tunnel. God’s hand is still here, even when morning feels far off. Joy may not come on our schedule, but it does come. That’s the rhythm of resurrection, of Christmas morning after a dark night in Bethlehem.

So we wait—not without tears, but with hope. And hope, in Christ, always bends toward joy.

Lord, let your joy be my strength. In the waiting, remind me that your morning is on the way. Hold me through the night, until joy rises like the sun. Amen.