Zechariah praises God because in Jesus Christ, God has fulfilled his promises from long ago. We see that we can praise God for his patient fulfillment of his promises, and as we rejoice in his patience, we will grow to be more patient as we wait expectantly for him to continue to fulfill all that he has promised.

In a sense, Advent is both the beginning and the end of the church year. It’s a time many Christians take to remember Jesus’s first coming and to look forward to his second. It’s the time of the church year that best represents our lives in this world—filled with the joy of Jesus’s first coming, and yet longing for him to come again.

If you’ve prayed much at all, you know that God sometimes answers, “No,” to your prayers. In our despair, we try to figure out why we didn’t get the answer we wanted. We wonder if maybe there’s something wrong with us. Or perhaps, God just doesn’t care. The Apostle Paul tells us about a time he heard “no” from God, and his response encourages us to keep trusting our heavenly Father even when his answers don’t match our desires.

How can Paul say that he boasts in his weakness? How is that he rejoices in his sufferings? He finds God and his grace hidden in suffering.

With so much content available to us, how can we discern what is good, biblical, and helpful? Paul is having to address this issue with the church in first-century Corinth, but it’s the example of another group that provides a way forward for us.