Were you ever promised something but it took a long time to receive it; so long that you thought it was not going to come?
   We have been promised many things by many people and those promises seem, at times, as distant as the stars. We wait for them but they never seem to come.
   There are some who give up hope. There are others who hang on to their faith and never give up hope. Some remember the lyrics to that old Sam Cooke song:
  "It's been too hard living but I'm afraid to die
   Cause I don't know what's up there beyond the sky
    It's been a long, a long time coming
    But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will."
   Like Cooke, we don't know the time schedule up there beyond the sky, but we believe a change is gonna come.
   We were able to endure slavery and the difficulties of reconstruction because we knew that a change was going to come.
   We were able to withstand the savage venom of racism and segregation because we knew a change was gonna come.
   We were able stand the frustrations of second class citizenship and powerlessness because we knew a change was going to come.
   Often the blessing we seek seems to take forever getting to us, but we have remained confident that if we keep the faith and never lose hope that God will bring about the changes we need, in his own time and in his own way.
   When we think of advent, we think about God's response to the world's needs. His response was to love the world so much that he would give his only begotten so that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
   When the world needed Him most, Christ came bringing hope and salvation to all who would receive Him.
   As Christians, we rejoice in the Lord always because we know that He may not come when we want Him, but He's always on time.