Let’s check our pulse as we enter into Christmas week. How are you feeling? Peaceful and still, or burnt out and frazzled with the whirlwind of plans and obligations? (It’s okay to say you are not struggling, we are all just jealous!)
I feel like no matter how hard I try to focus on the coming of Jesus and “the reason for the season” I miss the mark. I start out strong with my SheReadsTruth Advent study in the morning before work (click here to read along!) but then by the time I am 15 minutes into my work day, all the familiar stresses overwhelm me and push the peace I had aside. Instead I become full of the normal cares of life and I wander away from the perfect peace I experienced before.
How do we keep that perfect peace of God’s love for us throughout the day?
In Luke chapter 15 Jesus tells a parable about a lost sheep. A shepherd had a hundred sheep but one of them had wandered off and gotten lost. The shepherd left the ninety-nine in open country while he left to search out the lost one. And when he found it, he brought it back on his shoulders rejoicing.
My first reaction to this story was how irresponsible it was to leave the other 99 unattended. I’m sitting here thinking about all the dangers and risks of doing that. As that shepherd I’d be racked with guilt and dilemma. I love the one sheep, but what about all the others? How could I leave them all in the open country without any other protection? Wouldn’t I rather lose one than save one and lose 99?
Thankfully for us, God doesn’t think this way. He’s not hung up on the burdens and cares. Not that they aren’t important, but that his love is bigger than the cares. His love for us is so huge that to lay aside his heavenly crown and trade it for humanity is no big thing.
This is the mystery we try to unravel each Advent season. Putting together the pieces of prophecy and promise in scripture in light of what Jesus did for us on the cross. Christmas sets his plan of love in motion.
Be convinced of God’s love
I have made an effort to stop saying “get through the day”. I don’t want to just get through the day; it’s not the attitude I want to have. While we can’t have the mountaintop experience of faith every day, we still can remain in God’s love every day. All it takes is a simple prayer in the morning.
Don’t be discouraged if this is difficult. He sees your heart. He sees you trying. It is, after all, a work of the Spirit and unable to be manufactured by human hands. Pray and ask that the Lord would send you reminders throughout the day to strengthen you.
And then don’t sit around worrying; go, and do what you need to do. After Jesus would heal someone, he wouldn’t say to them, “Now go sit and think about what you’ve done some more and keep feeling bad about it.” No! He told them to “Go, and sin no more.”
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, netiher height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39
All of these things are passing away as the earth is passing away. In its place we know will be a new heaven and earth, a perfect situation that won’t change. And in the meantime, though, the circumstances do not determine God’s unfailing love for us. His love for us falls outside the power of anything or anyone else.
And here I am now – my day isn’t perfect, but again it is. And I don’t even have to wait for eternity to take advantage of it. The joy of salvation is hope. And hope is what I have this very minute.
tea & testimony 
Leave a Reply