Advent Devotion

Here is the devotion I wrote to celebrate advent with Hollywood UMC this year:

Isaiah 11:1-10

In the Message version of the Bible the section of this passage that discusses the wolf dwelling with the lamb is subtitled “A Living Knowledge of God”. The word living means not dead but it also means active or thriving or strong. There’s quite a chasm between the words not dead and active. And I think sometimes that’s where my knowledge of God, and my faith, lies. In that chasm.

I go to church on Sundays. I volunteer on Tuesdays. That’s about four or five hours a week when I’m actively living out my faith. When I’m practicing my spirituality or putting my beliefs into action. So what about those other 163 hours a week?

“The wolf will romp with the lamb, the leopard sleep with the kid. Calf and lion will eat from the same trough, and a little child will tend them.” – Isaiah 11:6 (The Message)

A little child will tend them. Will a little child also tend me and if so, how? During those hundreds of hours when I’m not consciously living out my faith, how will I be tended? And how can I help tend?

These are important questions. Not just for the advent season but for our lives 365 days a year. That little child, He is with me always. He is with me on Sunday mornings. He is with me at Tuesday lunches. But He is also with me in the dark of the night when I cry. Or in the early evening hours when I am cross. He is with me when I expect Him to be and when I least expect Him to be. He is with me always. He is tending my faith. He is tending me. Even when I am in that chasm.

That chasm may be disappointment or grief or disillusionment. It may be darker than we can ever fathom. It may be just light enough to fool us into thinking it’s not a chasm at all. Regardless of its depth or breadth, that chasm is there. And it’s our choice to determine to have a thriving, active, strong faith. Despite the chasm. Because that little child is tending to us. Tending to us always.

Prayer for today: Lord, help us to have a living knowledge of you and your love. Thank you for sending your son in the form of a child to remind us of that love during the Christmas season and every day of the year. Amen.