That’s often why we don’t ask – We fear the condition under which that fruit we desire might come.
Ask for patience and we’ll find ourselves amidst frustrating situations and people. Ask for joy and we find ourselves discovering what true joy is. It’s a scary thing, but it is the sieve through which our heart conditions itself not to our demands, but to Christ’s.
All throughout Advent, I’ve been knee deep in Bonhoeffer, Lewis, and Northwest Bible… Each source revealing old truth in a new way. The Lord is faithful to put in front of us in writing the very nudging our hearts need to be compliant. There is a safe pause in words that allows our heads to nod in agreement and our hearts that extra second to catch up. Advent is about catching up.
Simply put – Advent has been a revelation of how my passions, decisions, motives, and strategies have sprinted a little faster than my prayers, my patient endurance, and my being still.
This morning I read this statement: “Our lesser glory (flesh) may get its way, but God’s great glory and abundance will not be there to distinguish us.”
Ouch. So true.
What are the ambitions, the plans, the way I am setting for the new year? What have I set before God feeling fairly certain that He’s on board before I’ve pulled away from the dock? Have I said in my heart “I know the plans I have for me” without even pausing to consider that God says “I know the plans I have for you”?
The discipline of pausing and asking this of our hearts is essential lest we might arrive in a place where we get our way, but our way will have no godly distinction set upon it. The discussion in our household of late has centered around the common notion that God will not give us more than we can handle… And how this simply isn’t true. God often gives us more than we can handle as a method of binding our hearts to His. Our God came to overwhelm, not merely to placate the status quo.
It is because of this desire to overwhelm that we are led to Luke 2.
Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
It is here that Billy Graham says, “The greatest sermon ever preached was delivered by angels on this historic night. It has always been interesting to me that this message was delivered at night. It wasn’t night because the sun had gone down. It was night because the world was surrounded in spiritual and moral gloom.”
We find ourselves in night when we make a decision to veer, even if only slightly, from the path that God has set for us. A slight veer jettisons our hearts quickly towards the temporal leaving us undistinguished in the forest of earthly gloom. Our hope is in the sermon of angels, the birth of a baby, and a life distinguished through proximity to Christ.
May we spend this Christmas with a bent knee towards the Christ who gives circumstances meant to overwhelm and overpower our hearts towards His.
Merry Christmas, friends.
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