itsawonderfilledlife

Week 1
The People’s Need

“Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them.” Jonah 2:8

Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. Ecclesiastes 7:10

“But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.” Philippians 3:13

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know"

White Christmas … that is my personal ideal of the season. The snow bring light to an otherwise dark night, dark season. I expect that my ideal was formed in my childhood, growing up on Canada’s East Coast, where snow and Christmas were synonymous.

Ah … the ideals we carry in our minds! The past can be so easily idealized in our minds.

“Back in my day …”

“In the good ol’ days …”

“When I was a kid …”

Remembering the past, the events of the past, can be good for our hearts and souls, for the past has brought us to where we are currently. Yet, we cannot return to a previous time. And, if we look at the past clearly, it wasn’t all delight. At Christmas especially, we can allow our minds to visit Christmas’ past and choose to stay there indefinitely.

Christmas includes the past, present and future. It is the fulfillment of past promises, we get to walk through today with the God who loves us and, in this advent season, we get to anticipate the celebration of the birth of Jesus, who will come again in time to come.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

Hebrews 13:8

God,

I need to honest with you … I want my old world back. I want to live in my memories of snow, and family all together, and carols by the tree, and littles snuggling in close, and the warmth of holding a loved one’s hand, and … simpler times.

Yet, I live in the now, the present … remind me to unwrap it. Remind me to cherish it, the present, the now. For today is the gift you have given … yesterday is gone and tomorrow is not promised.

Prepare me, prepare my heart for whatever world is coming. Prepare me, my heart and soul, for the coming of your Son … the best gift.

For you do not change … you remain.

Rest is the defiant act
of creating space
In my own life
for my own soul.
While I cannot stop
the passage of time,
I can pause
my passage through time
so that I can see
yesterday more clearly
and choose tomorrow
more willingly.
-Justin McRoberts