Advent reminds us that, even when we can’t see it, God is working - just as he was in the 400 years of silence before Christ’s birth. Even when it’s hard, Ayoola Bandele says the invitation of advent is not to grit our teeth and deny our longings, but focus on what God is doing in us anyway
Some Decembers feel like standing in a packed church, singing about hope while quietly wondering if yours got lost in the post.
Advent is often described as a season of waiting. In church, we light candles, read the prophets and sing songs of longing: ‘O come, O come, Emmanuel’. We remember a people watching the horizon for a Messiah who seemed slow in coming. But for many of us, Advent also brings our own unanswered waiting into sharper focus. The job that has not opened up, the diagnosis that has not changed, the child who has not come home, the calling that has not quite begun — all of it can feel more exposed as the year closes.
In those moments, it is easy to assume that a hidden season means a wasted one. We look around and it can appear that everyone else is moving forward. Friends change careers, start families or join new churches. Colleagues are promoted, ministries are launched, opportunities appear. Meanwhile, our own lives can feel stuck in the in-between: faithful but unseen; committed but overlooked. It is hard not to shake the thought that perhaps we have somehow missed our moment.
But the Bible is strangely at home with long stretches of apparent inactivity.
The long silence
Between the final prophetic words of the Old Testament and the opening lines of the New, there are roughly 400 years in which no new scripture is recorded. No Elijahs or Isaiahs fill the pages. If we had been writing the story, we might have labelled those centuries as silence. Yet heaven was far from still.
In those years, empires rose and fell, roads were laid, languages spread and Jewish communities were scattered across the known world. By the time Jesus was born, Roman roads would carry the gospel across continents, a shared language would allow New Testament letters to travel far beyond their writers’ home towns, and synagogues planted in distant cities would become the first places that the apostles preached.
What looks like delay is often the forge where clarity is shaped, one ordinary yes at a time
From earth’s eye-level, nothing was happening. Yet from heaven’s vantage point, the stage was being set. Advent reminds us that God is often at work in the wings long before anything steps into the spotlight. What looks like delay from our seat may be careful timing from his.
The hidden years
Even in the life of Jesus, there is a striking amount of hiddenness. The Gospels give us the wonder of his birth, a brief glimpse of him in the temple at twelve, and then one simple sentence to describe nearly three decades: “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52).
Thirty years of quiet life in Nazareth precede three years of public ministry. By modern standards - especially in a world infatuated with early achievement and visible ‘impact’ - the ratio feels almost absurd. Yet our Father is in no hurry. The Son of God learns a trade, submits to parents, participates in ordinary village rhythms and simply grows.
These hidden years were not wasted; they were foundational. They shaped Christ’s humanity, compassion and understanding of ordinary life. Before the crowds gathered, before the miracles and before the cross, there was quiet preparation.
If Jesus embraced his hidden years, then our own seasons of waiting are not signs of being forgotten. They may be the workshop where God is quietly building the strength we will need for what comes next.
The waiting hearts of Advent
Mary and Elizabeth embody the ache - and gift - of waiting. Mary waits in uncertainty, carrying a promise she cannot fully explain. Elizabeth waits through years of unanswered prayer, long past the age of hope. Yet both find God working in ways no one could see.
Further into the Advent story stand Simeon and Anna: two elderly believers who held onto God’s promises for decades. Simeon is told he will not die before seeing the Messiah - but never told when. Anna remains faithful through widowhood and obscurity, worshipping in the temple day and night. When Jesus finally arrives, both recognise him instantly. Hidden faith had given them clarity of sight.
From earth’s eye-level, nothing was happening. Yet from heaven’s vantage point, the stage was being set
Their lives remind us that waiting sharpens discernment. Hidden years prepare us to see God clearly when he moves. And perhaps that is part of Advent’s gift to us: it tells us that our long, unseen obedience is not invisible to God, even when it is invisible to everyone else.
What God does in the hidden years
Hidden seasons are not spiritual dead ends. They are often the very places where God does his most important work.
1. Hidden years form character
In a culture that measures influence in followers and platforms, God remains deeply interested in who we are when no one is looking. Joseph’s years in prison, David’s years in caves and Zechariah’s ordinary priestly routines all became classrooms of humility and trust. Roots go down before fruit comes up.
2. Hidden years surface unhealed places
When life slows down, old disappointments and buried griefs often rise. Advent, with its blend of darkness and dawning light, gives us permission to bring these honest places before God, rather than stuffing them back into the cupboard.
3. Hidden years clarify calling
We imagine vocation arriving fully formed, like a job title from heaven. But most people find their calling through small obediences — serving someone else’s vision, volunteering quietly, doing unseen work faithfully. What looks like delay is often the forge where clarity is shaped, one ordinary yes at a time.
4. Hidden years teach trust without timetables
Many of us could wait faithfully if only we knew how long the waiting would last. But God invites us into a different kind of relationship - one built on daily bread, not five-year plans. It is uncomfortable, but it is also the soil of surrender. Trust grows when we discover that God is good even when the story is unfinished.
An advent invitation
So, what might it look like to wait well this Advent?
Not by pretending our longings don’t exist, or by gritting our teeth through December, but by leaning gently into three invitations that Advent offers:
1. Look again
Where might God already be moving quietly? What if “nothing happening” is actually God preparing the way? What if the emails that never came and the doors that never opened have been protecting you as much as they have been redirecting you?
2. Slow down
What if the slowness is the soil of something new? What if waiting is not punishment but preparation? When we stop sprinting to fix everything, we may finally notice the God who has been walking beside us all along.
3. Prepare room
What in your life needs decluttering, simplifying or surrendering? God often fills the space we dare to make. Sometimes that space looks as ordinary as a quiet 10 minutes, a cancelled commitment or a brave conversation.
Advent does not cancel our personal seasons of waiting. It reframes them.
The God who seemed silent for centuries stepped into history at the right time, in the right way, in a place hardly anyone was watching. The same God is at work - often imperceptibly - in the hidden years of our lives.
If your story feels offstage right now, it may not be because you have been forgotten. It may be because, like so many before you, you are being quietly formed for what is yet to come — and because Christ has been with you in the waiting all along.
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