Yearning for God’s Presence
READ
There's something raw and honest about Isaiah's prayer that stops us in our tracks. It's not a polite and polished kind of prayer. It's the cry of someone who's tired of waiting, tired of silence, tired of hoping for change that never seems to come.
Let’s take a moment to read Isaiah 64:1-4:
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you!
As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you!
For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.
Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.
REFLECT
Maybe you know that feeling. Maybe you've prayed prayers like this—desperate, honest prayers where you've asked God to just show up already. To break through whatever ceiling seems to be between you and heaven. To do something unmistakable, something that changes everything.
Isaiah was speaking to a people who felt abandoned. They'd messed up royally, faced consequences, and now found themselves in a spiritual wasteland wondering if God still cared.
The prophet's words capture that ache we all feel sometimes—the longing for God to be less distant, less mysterious, more... here.
Here's what's beautiful about Advent: it's God's answer to Isaiah's prayer, though it came centuries later in a way no one expected. God didn't just tear open the heavens with thunder and lightning. He opened them quietly, through a young girl's yes, through a baby's cry in Bethlehem.
The God of the universe compressed Himself into human flesh, not to intimidate us with power, but to be with us in our mess.
That's the heart of the Incarnation—God's love expressed in the most intimate way possible. Not shouting from heaven, but whispering from a manger. Not demanding our attention through force, but drawing us close through vulnerability.
This Advent season, we're invited into that same kind of honest yearning Isaiah expressed. God doesn't want our pretense or our performance. He wants our real hearts, our real questions, our real desperation. Because when we bring our authentic selves to Him—even the parts that are tired of waiting, frustrated by silence, or struggling to hope—we position ourselves to encounter the God who came close.
The journey we're starting today isn't about working up enough religious feeling to properly celebrate Christmas. It's about paying attention to where we're genuinely longing for God's presence and daring to believe that the Incarnation means He's already closer than we think.
Emmanuel—God with us—isn't just a Christmas card sentiment. It's the promise that our yearning isn't one-sided, that God has been pursuing us with love long before we ever thought to pursue Him.
RESPOND
Take a moment to process what God might be leading you to do in light of what you read.
Where in your life are you most yearning for God to "tear open the heavens" and make His presence known?
What would it look like to bring your most honest longings to God this Advent season?
How might God already be present in ways you haven't yet recognized?
REST
Take a moment to rest in God’s presence and consider one thing you can take away from your time reading, then close your devotional experience by praying:
God, I come to you with my real heart today—the yearning, the questions, the weariness. Thank you for not needing me to have it all together. This Advent, help me recognize the ways you're already near, already working, already expressing your love. Open my eyes to see Emmanuel—God with us. Amen.