I think Christmas is too big to just celebrate one day of the year, so I relish the whole of Advent Season, lighting the candles and reading an Advent devotional every day. I love the idea of waiting, the anticipation, taking in again the heart of God in sending to us His only Son, God coming to us - right where we are and right as we are.
The expression of God's love that Advent dwells on humbles me over and over.
God comes for me.
God comes looking for me.
God comes because He wants relationship.....with me!?
The light of the world chose to step down into darkness, my darkness, that I could walk in His light.
Wow!
"O come, O come, Emmanuel," the song says, "and ransom captive Israel." We don't even know that we are captive until His light shines and reveals it. But we are, captive, that is. We are captive to our selfish wants, never-ending needs and idolatrous desires. What we call freedom to do as we desire actually just tightens the chains of captivity around us.
Our only true freedom comes when we come to Christ. As Christ comes to us, we need to respond by coming to Him.
""I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable, unto God, which is your reasonable service."
Romans 12:1
We come to Him, all of us, which is all He asks. We don't need to bring Him gifts; we don't need to be able to pray perfectly; we don't need to have our "act all together." We just need to come to Him in all our brokenness, all our neediness, all our imperfections, all our longings, hopes, dreams, needs and desires.
You see, life isn't perfect and it never will be. We pray for peace, we pray for healing, we pray for relationships to be mended; we desperately want life to be "normal," when in fact, there really is no such utopia.
Life is messy. There will always be sickness, always be wars, always be brokenness. This, this is life. What we need is not for life to be normal or perfect. What we need is Jesus to walk through all the brokenness and messiness with us!
Let Him come to you today and then come to Him! Bring Him all your messy life. Let Him make sense out of the senseless! Give Him all your pieces. Let Him light your darkness!
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