Tag: christmas meditation

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Are you waiting and properly preparing for Christmas?

Today we light the Advent wreath’s 2nd of 4 candles as we wait on the coming of Jesus. Different denominations celebrate this season differently https://www.dailypress.com/life/faith/dp-fea-advent-christianity-20161126-story.html but there is one common principle shared. We are to spend this four week period waiting so that we might be renewed. This past summer I used my morning coffee to share how to be our best. It was about the need for emptying, cleaning, and refilling so that we could taste the newness of each day.https://thankfulinallthings.com/how-do-you-keep-yourself-energized/ I then wrote a few weeks later on how watching my grandchildren and my Bout with Guillain Barre taught me lessons on how to wait.https://thankfulinallthings.com/do-you-find-it-hard-to-wait/ The original season of Advent was arguably the most important season of waiting in all of history. We celebrate it over four weeks but it lasted much longer for those who waited for their Savior. Isaiah was written during the Babylonian period, about 580 to 520. So the supposed prophecy regarding Jesus was about 500 to 600 years before He was born. In fact, The Old Testament, written hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth, contains over 300 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled through His life, death and resurrection. The One who would free them from their master and establish a new kingdom. Little did they know what they were waiting for and in reality, many ended up very disappointed.

In this season of Advent for what are you waiting? Depending on what it is, you too could end up disappointed and experiencing the pain of unmet expectations. The gift you didn’t get. The relationship that continues to be side ways. You or your loved ones recovering from health issues. The job or promotion that didn’t occur. The discontentment you feel from not feeling like your life matters or even with achievement leaves you with the sense that there has to be more. Like the Jewish people you could be waiting on something that is not what God intended. If that is the case, you will end up disappointed and discouraged. The second candle represents love. God created you, loves you, and because of that baby being born in a manger, you can establish a relationship with Him that will not let you down. Your Joy will be made full
https://biblehub.com/john/15-11.htm and instead of the world beating you down you can experience the abundant life God promises. https://biblia.com/bible/esv/john/10/10

As we mark the Season of Advent, let’s take the time to wait on the Lord and examine our hearts. Like our cup of coffee, make it a time where stop, allow ourselves to be cleansed filled again so that we might be renewed. Enjoy the fun of preparing and decorating for Christmas but let us also not forget that we are to “prepare the the way of the Lord” , the Son of God, who became man to save the world and give each of us life now and for evermore. Hallelujah for He is the King of Kings! Enjoy this fun flash mob rendition.
https://youtu.be/SXh7JR9oKVE

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Did you get to see the Christmas star?

This week the stars aligned. Well actually, NASA described it this way. “Jupiter and Saturn aligned in the night sky on Dec. 21 in an event astronomers call the “great conjunction” — also referred to as the “Christmas Star” — marking the planets’ closest encounter in nearly 400 years. https://apple.news/AHBOEehUORSyRWvSNsB9wBQ There are many that say this is what the Three Wise Men followed when seeking to worship Jesus after He was born. I was struck by the fact that all around the world people were looking upward to catch this amazing phenomenon. What a wonderful picture analogy of the Advent season where we wait expectantly to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Like us seeing the great conjunction, the Israelites waited hundreds of years to welcome a Messiah who Isaiah prophesied about 700 years before his birth. The difference of course is in a matter of days Jupiter and Saturn are no longer visible whereas the world has never been the same since “unto us a child was born whose name is Jesus, Wonderful counselor, our Immanuel.” Isaiah 9:6

The second similarity that the great conjunction brought to mind is that we are all waiting for Covid19 to release its wretched grip on our lives making it so difficult to be with the ones we love. Like the planets, we look to the availability of the vaccine to be made so all we will be well and life as we imagine it will get back to normal. It certainly feels like the Christmas carol, “a star, a start dancing in the night” that provides us some glimmer of hope that this soon could be over. As I thought about this I happened upon the Season 3 The Crown episode where Prince Phillip watches every moment of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins landing on the moon.https://youtu.be/qLebb96VHJM It is again a picture of looking up at the moon and being amazed at the courage it took to achieve this heroic accomplishment. The Prince was astounded that the astronauts were more interested in Buckingham Castle and what his life of royalty was like than landing on the moon. So often, we think what others have done or are doing is much more important or significant than ours. It can lead to discouragement as we fall into the lie that our life doesn’t measure up to others.

Christmas speaks truth to that lie. Missionary, Doug Coppage, sums it up well in a recent letter to a friend. “My hope does not depend on other people, no matter how religious or corrupt they may be.  My hope rests in Jesus alone, and he did a very, very good job of overcoming darkness, despair, death, and every other curse of human life.  God did all this through Jesus for us – and for me!  This is God’s Christmas lesson for me this year.”

This Christmas, may the eyes of your heart be enlightened, that you may have a deeper “Christmas star” understanding of what it means to love God and to love others. Only then can we receive the best gift God offers Us; His unique divinity, His grace and truth, His indescribable peace. May it make you “Thankful in all Things”

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