It's the seventh day of Christmas, aka New Year's Eve to the rest of the world and I can't stop thinking about the birth of redemption. The mystery of the conception, the birth of Deity into humanity. The incarnation of our salvation came to us in the most ordinary and extraordinary of ways. Our desperately needed redemption cried as he entered our world as a wrinkled, screaming baby covered in goo. He came in human form to redeem those humans who took the first bites of forbidden fruit and sealed our fate. He came to redeem the rest of us born into a fallen world because of his great love for us. Knowing our failures, knowing our imperfections, knowing our weaknesses, he humbled himself for us. The beauty and glory of that is almost more than I can bear. How quickly we can forget that only He is our hope and salvation!
After spending the advent season anticipating I'm finding myself fighting the urge to spend these last days of Christmas focusing on the new year. Maybe like me, you are also feeling yourself pulled away from the mystery of Christmas and focusing instead on what 2019 will bring. Maybe you're hoping things will be better, or at least not worse. Looking forward to new adventures and leaving behind the struggles of 2018. Perhaps striving for better health and hoping to finally conquer that pesky resolution to lose weight and get in shape. Maybe setting a few goals and then spending a lot of energy trying to make everything fit the expectations of what you think they should be. And just like that your focus has shifted to what you can do to make your life better. It happens to all of us. We misplace our hope in our own abilities and desires and discover that misplaced hope is fickle. All of our striving becomes an exercise in futility. Because even when our goals are good, focusing on them instead of the ONE who authors our story and redeems us leads us on a path to self-idolatry.
If my life were a movie, the past seven years would have been titled "Reality Bites". It slapped me in the face more times than I can count and frankly, it left me a bit cold. Yet, reality is exactly where I collided again and again with that little baby who was born in a stable so many years ago. He was, is, and always will be the redemption my battered soul so desperately needed. My faith has grown and stalled and faltered and deepened over the past thirty-five years. I have tried to walk away, I have screamed and cried and bargained for my will to prevail, but ultimately I learned to rest in true hope, which has brought immense joy, peace, and strength to persevere when I thought I could not go on another day.
I wish you true hope and peace in 2019!
