Advent December 6th
This year I am reading the C.S. Lewis Institute’s lovely devotional based on Handel’s Messiah, which you likely know is Scripture set to music. I am also re-reading the Advent devotional I wrote years ago, Making Room for the Light. Then my goal is to write a couple thoughts or paragraphs synthesizing or contrasting the two themes. So far this attempt to ponder the coming of our Savior has been a fruitful exercise. I hope reading this is half the blessing that writing it is. And as always I so appreciate that anyone would carve out a few minutes to read what I write. So, thank you!
The Messiah devotional today talked about the virgin birth being a “mystery that human beings cannot understand, but a truth that we can believe and trust.” Making Room focused on how the hurry-hurry of the season can leave us clanging like cymbals instead of being present and loving in the moment. But here’s what struck me. These ideas are actually related. In fact, one enables the other.
F.B. Meyer wrote about how we can achieve a mindset of “thy will, not mine.” One component is to realize it is not about a feeling but an act of the will. This is common in the Christian life: we are often called to trust without understanding. Some mysteries are too great for us. (Psalm 139:6 and Romans 11:33). We will not understand the virgin birth (did Jesus have Joseph’s DNA?) but we are blessed when we take God at His word, when we explicitly acknowledge that God’s ways are higher than our ways. Amazingly, this kind of submission leads to peace, it leads to a resignation that not everything is up to us. This posture of trust enables us to live in the moment and not clang like a cymbal.
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26.
Digging Deeper:
Where do you need to trust God as an act of will through the power of the Holy Spirit?
Where are you most prone to go through the motions without love? Can you recognize the clanging cymbal aspect of such action?
Do you think greater trust leads to greater peace and love?