Always Hope
Isaiah 40: 31
“But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
#alwayshope
Candle of Hope
Category: Bible
Whatever’s Going Down
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Just Breathe
So hey, maybe it’s time to just take a step back out of the day and out of the hectic, to look at the big picture. Is it really all that and worth getting anxious about? Is it really?
Sometimes, we get a clearer view when we distance ourselves from the activities! Grab a cup of Christmas tea and breathe through the next moment. Sometimes if we step back just a bit, we can see the facade and maybe begin to remove some of the layers, just to lay it all out before ourselves and our Saviour, in these final days of our Advent season! What ploughs through, that needs not to be so aggressive? Panic? Fear? Worry? Failure to get done what you so planned to do? Christmas isn’t about what we do or how we do it or how much we can do? It’s about enjoying precious moments with family and friends through our imperfections. It’s about forgetting the deadlines, or at least placing them into proper perspective!
So hey! This busy day you’re in, it’s time for tea and refreshment. Take time to come before the Lord and Savior and in quiet moments just light a candle ~ just you and Him alone. Let His words be a Lamp to your feet and a light to your pathway of next steps. Ask for His counsel, act on His still, quiet voice, and begin to peel away those things that shouldn’t be there cluttering up your beautiful Advent season.
“Tis a time for warm delights, family traditions, memories, and making more. Don’t let the sweet moments of the season dissipate into busy, chaotic schedules and fast-paced rituals, just because! Don’t let them sink into fearful thoughts and panic moments of ‘What’s next.” Rather, find ‘calm’ in His presence! Delight in His words and a new strength in His power!
So go ahead light that candle just between you and our Lord and find peace, find Joy, and find a love so extraordinary it will soften the harshest moments of your fear, anxiety, chaos, and strife.
“Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted, but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40: 30 31
Unwrap God’s divine Gift of JOY in the quiet silences of the moment
An Eye for an Eye
Yeah, I know, so often don’t we just want to rip through those who have shoved us under the bus for no reason? Ahh, Just to settle the score would make us feel so much better wouldn’t it? It would just make everything so right in our own eyes to give back what we were given? Just do what they did, only maybe find a bigger bus to shove them under. Sadly, that’s the way of the world and the thinking behind so much violence that happens around us today.
Jesus condemned that practice of personal retaliation when He stood on the Mount of Beatitudes, a hill in Northern Israel on the Korazim Plateau, and preached to the twelve apostles, and as Matthew 4 states, ‘A great multitude of people’. He preached to a large crowd of listeners to guide them in a life of discipline based on a new law; a law of love, even to our enemies, rather a law of retribution.
He spoke to them and to us today when he preached the words in Matthew 5: 38 -42,
“You have heard that it was said, ” An Eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.”
Now, Jesus wasn’t talking about harsh, evil, and abusive behavior here. The ‘slap on the cheek’ is a figure of speech, to simply portray letting the offense go! However, harsh, evil, and abusive behaviour is the work of darkness and Jesus condemns it in Ephesians 5: 11-13. Emotional and physically abusive treatment calls for clear thinking and immediate action. Make sure to seek help if you find yourself in such a dark place. You are not to blame for the treatment you receive. Rather, you are so very valuable in God’s eyes and He places you above that kind of wicked and disorderly conduct.
Ahh yes, and back to the simple offense, as much as we feel the need to lash out, being obsessed with retaliation will only make us bitter! It will eat away all the good, hiding deep within our soul and eventually, it will destroy us.
Perhaps, as the season of Advent approaches an appropriate preparation for our own hearts, would be to simply forgive the hurt, let it go, and let the healing begin, so that the Love that was born that night long ago, can rise up within our soul and bring us the peace that our Saviour brings. What a transforming Advent prep for us to consider before the fun, family festivities begin.
Hope and Healing In Hard Places 