Two years ago, we were waiting to move to India for the first time. This advent season, we are waiting for visas to be processed so that we can return to India. There are certainly times that seem more clearly marked than others by uncertainty or waiting, but the truth is that Advent speaks to our perpetual life experience of living in the present and waiting for the future to unfold. No matter what season of life we are in, we harbor hopes, fears, and expectations in our hearts; we turn excitement, possibilities, or dread over and over in our minds. And advent speaks to that tension of suspended possibilities; of hoping and preparing but not knowing how it all will turn out.

I used to think it was a bit artificial to go through the motions of supposedly waiting in suspense for something that we all knew was coming in a predictable form on a predictable schedule. After all, Advent culminates in Christmas every year. No surprises there. But Advent is not just the season of counting down to Christmas day—it’s also the long vigil for God’s arrival. We are waiting for God to be born in our world, to grow in our lives, to proclaim peace in every painful situation of conflict and confusion that we find ourselves tangled up in. And the truth is that while we may have our own ideas of what that will mean, we don’t know exactly what it will look like when it happens.

Advent, a wise priest told me last week, is the spiritual art of waiting for the unexpected: preparing ourselves for what we know while remaining open to the unknown. If we aren’t on the lookout for Jesus, we’ll be caught off guard by his arrival in our lives. But if all of our careful planning fools us into believing that we can predict and control the future, then that rigorous preparation may actually prevent us from embracing him when he comes! Our assumptions may prevent us from accepting the surprising ways that Christ chooses to incarnate in our lives and in our world. It’s a delicate balance of planning and not planning; preparation and spontaneity.