looking for purpose in chaos and comfort
God’s chosen people avoided spiritual obedience by practicing the ritual of worship. The people rebelled–even to the point of prostituting themselves with idol worship–and spent years of anguish in exile. Still, God remembered His promises to Abraham and the covenant with His people which He would not break. A new covenant is required—one that fulfills all that God promised to Abraham and makes the people blameless.
Within a few weeks of having our sweet Eden home, I realized what God had done. He had revealed Himself through the adoption of our daughter. Even though I was a believer for a lot of years before, I now saw salvation in a different light—that God deeply, deeply loves me and made all the arrangements so that I could be His child. I had doubted for so long that God could work all this pain together for good. I had felt for so long that God was punishing me by not allowing me to carry a baby to term. I had grown accustomed to thinking of God as angry, and cold, and distant. But here He was showing Himself.
I thoroughly enjoy decorating and gift giving and cooking for a crowd. No one is going to shame me into removing the Christmas stockings from the mantel because it’s a tradition that doesn’t do enough to promote Jesus. Still, I’m not going to flip open my bible and find a big guy who rides in a sleigh or a Currier and Ives snow scene or Ebenezer Scrooge. What I do find in scripture is the truth. I enjoy stocking stuffers and peppermint bark. I need truth.
Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have…
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree…
At Christmas I have to examine my flurry of decorating, shopping, wrapping, cooking and partying and wonder if I’ve forgotten who made His entrance on that day. He exchanged His place at God’s right hand for a manger, His throne for a cross—and He did this for me. If my Christmas traditions are the Sunday school equivalent of a superficial smile, nod and a “Hey, good to see ya,” at the advent of so great a salvation, then I’m in serious need of prayer.
Has Jesus taken hold of you? In Philippians chapter three, Paul describes a depth of self-abandonment of which few of us are acquainted. Before Christ confronted him on the road…
Jesus tells the disciples all about the Holy Spirit, assured them of His peace, and then says not to fear. It implies that what the Lord gives covers us so completely, that nothing should cause us too much concern. As if the immeasurable power of the Holy Spirit isn’t enough, God gives us the Holy Spirit in love–the love of a perfect heavenly Father providing for His children.
Katie Prescott Beasley 