#5 - Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 2) - Being Still

Barbara Rainey's Top 10 Interviews

Click Here to Listen to the other parts in the series
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 1) - A Call to Advent
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 2) - Being Still
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 3) - Introducing Your Kids to the Savior
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 4) - His Savior Names
Celebrating Advent with Laura Rainey Dries (Part 5) - Remembering Christ at Christmas

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript

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Being Still

Guests: Dennis and Barbara Rainey

From the series: Celebrating Advent (Day 2 of 5)

Air date: November 29, 2016

Bob: Taking time during the weeks leading up to Christmas to prepare our hearts for the celebration of His coming, that’s what Advent is all about. And Barbara Rainey says, “It helps us cultivate faith.”

Barbara: The whole purpose for Advent—the reason that the church fathers came up with this idea, back in the Middle Ages—was to encourage people, who were believers in Christ, to prepare their hearts for Christmas Day. It’s a way to anticipate His coming / it’s a way to look forward to celebrating the birth of Christ on Christmas Day. When we practice Advent today, it’s essentially the same thing—it’s a way to mark the time, but it’s also a way to build anticipation.

One of my favorite writers has written: “That loss of expectation is loss of faith. What else is faith but expectation?” I love that quote—that when we expect, we believe / when we are anticipating, we believe.

1:00

I think that’s really, really good for us.

I think there are some real benefits for families. The first one is—it teaches us to be patient. We are not a patient people in this culture—our children aren’t patient / we’re not patient. We’re so used to everything being readily available whenever we want it. But if you mark Advent—and you can only open one lunch sack, for instance, or one little box; and you have to wait a whole week for the next one—it teaches us, as people, to be patient—that’s a good quality / it’s a good attribute.

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, November 29th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I’m Bob Lepine. There are lots of people wanting you to be thinking about lots of different things during these weeks before Christmas. We think it’s good for all of us to be thinking about the celebration of Jesus’ coming. We’ll talk more about that today. Stay with us.

2:00

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Tuesday edition. I just need to make sure our listeners understand you prepare for FamilyLife Today very differently than your wife prepares for this program, when she is joining us on FamilyLife Today—as she is today—Barbara, welcome back to FamilyLife Today.

Barbara: Thank you, Bob.

Bob: And here is what I mean by that—

Dennis: Yes; why don’t you tell me what you mean by that? [Laughter]

Bob: We have been doing this program for 24-plus years now.

Dennis: Over 5,000 broadcasts.

Bob: In those 24-plus years, there has never been a day that you’ve come in to the studio with four brown paper bags that have glitter, and glue, and numbers on them. You’ve never come up with a little craft like this for our program. You just come in with some notes, and “Here’s what I want to talk about,” and “Let’s go. C’mon! C’mon!” And your wife comes in—this is beautiful / she brought in some bags with glitter and glue on them.

3:00

Dennis: And she’s appealing to something that you and I, both—when we were little boys and, even today, as adults—she’s appealing to our curiosity: “What’s in bag number 1?” and “What’s in number 2?” “—3?” and “—4?”

I remember where my mom used to stash all the Christmas presents before she would put them under—

Bob: You knew where they were hidden?

Dennis: Oh, yes. Are you kidding? I mean, I was a super-sleuth around the house.

Bob: Snoop is what you were—not sleuth—snoop.

Dennis: Oh, well, that’s true too. I would sniff them out. And I admit—one time, I found the closet upstairs—our house was a small, small house. It was kind of dark up there, but there was no one watching. So, I kind of unwrapped—

Bob: —a couple of the presents?

Dennis: —a couple of the presents.

Bob: Yes.

Dennis: And my mom was a better sleuth than me. [Laughter] But here is the thing—the anticipation of leading up to Christmas is something that every child / every adult enjoys.

4:00

I think what Barbara is doing here, around Advent and Christmas, is appealing to that curiosity and trying to get us to think about, “What’s in bag number 1?” I think she’s going to let you do it, in a second, after we talk about what Advent is.

Bob: You brought these in as object lessons for us on today’s program; right?

Barbara: Well, they are object lessons; but it’s also a way for listeners to hear us do this and go: “Oh, that’s not so hard. I could do that. I could even do that this year.” Practicing Advent is not that difficult. Here is an easy way that you can practice Advent with your family, even this year. Even though the first Sunday of Advent was last Sunday, there are still four Sundays left. You could still do it this year if you wanted to.

Bob: There are four lunch sacks here on the table.

Barbara: Just plain old, brown lunch sacks—nothing fancy.

Bob: And with glitter and glue, you’ve got numbers 1,...