Over 2000 years ago people looked around them in dismay:
fighting,
fear,
and frailty of body, mind and soul surrounded them.
Hearts longed for someone, the promised Messiah, to save them. They knew what He would look like. They knew what to expect, and when.
Yet, not one was prepared for what God would author: a lowly manger, sheltering a teenage mom and a newborn baby.
The scene was all wrong!
The timing wasn’t right!
Jesus just didn’t look like a Savior ought; He was a poor baby, not a great king!
Do you, like me, feel the weight of a year fraught with fighting, fear, and frailty of body, mind, and spirit?
Do you too, long for someone, anyone, to save us?
At Christmastime, the season of miracles, we just might allow our hearts to hope.
What if this Christmas’ miracle is to set aside our sorrow, abandon our anxieties, and denounce our disillusions?
What if we could focus on the little bundle of God’s big love, letting hope and joy reign in our hearts and our homes?
What if we allowed the start of John 3:16, the sending of God’s Son, the birth of Jesus, to fill our hearts with hope?
While we look around in dismay, searching for a Savior, He has already authored a solution for all the fighting, fear, and frailty we will ever endure. He sent the solution in a beautiful baby bundled in a barn.
He is both a solution and the Savior we didn’t expect.
He knows our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs today. All we need to do in the midst of this world falling apart is to have faith.
Our job today: let go. Let go of the fears, the fighting, and surrender our frailty to Him.
Trust He has it all, because He does.
Worship while we wait. Worship as He provides for our needs and carries us, as this too, eventually passes.
We might think we know what to expect, how our solution will come and when. But it doesn’t matter.
We need to simply trust: He has us.
Come, let us adore Him.
Let’s allow our hearts to overflow with His Hope. Let’s spend an entire day joy-filled in our quiet homes, hearts hearing and echoing God’s love. Let our words and actions flow from a faith in our Father.
Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, You know our hearts today. You also know the hope You’ve authored. Help my heart to overflow with Your hope. Help me to hold onto Your hope. Let that hope fill me and overflow through me. Thank You for Jesus. May I truly celebrate my Savior and His hope this Christmas, In Jesus’ name, Amen.