Prepare Your Hearts

Christmas is upon us and we have entered into the Advent season.

The word “Advent” actually comes from a Latin word – adventus – and it means “coming” or “arrival.”

You won’t find the season of Advent laid out in the Bible. We aren’t commanded to observe it.

But, for generations Christians have counted off the four Sundays leading up to Christmas and devoted themselves to preparing their hearts for the coming – the arrival – of Jesus.

It’s a really beautiful – and really profound – tradition.

See, we spend a lot of time preparing for Christmas. We prepare to throw parties. We prepare to host meals. We prepare cookies and trees and decorations and gifts.

But so often we forget to prepare our hearts.

We let the chaos of the Christmas season overtake us and, before we know it, Christmas is over, and we hardly even thought about the very One we celebrate at Christmas. We hardly even thought about Jesus. We didn’t prepare our hearts for Him.

So, how do we do that? Let me give you just two ways.

First, make time with God a priority. Take time to read the Christmas story from the Bible. You can find it in the book of Matthew, chapters 1 and 2, and in the book of Luke, also in chapters 1 and 2. Read just a little bit each day and consider this incredible story. Prepare your heart by spending time with Him.

Second, make time with God’s people. Join others in worship – whether in person or online. Learn together. Wonder together. Celebrate together. Prepare your heart by spending time with others.

I know it has been a crazy year and this Christmas will probably look different than past Christmases. But I hope and pray that you encounter God in an incredible way during this season of Advent. I hope and pray that you would experience the joy and peace that He came to bring.

Happy Advent!

Purpose in the Desert

Moses was nothing more than a lowly shepherd when God showed up and gave Moses his marching orders.

Moses grew up among Egyptian royalty but, years earlier, had fled to the desert after he’d killed an Egyptian for beating one of the Israelite slaves.

He ended up in the land of Midian. He married, had children, and settled down.

He took a job tending his father-in-law’s sheep in the desert for the next forty years.

Moses assumed he would live out his days as a shepherd. He had grown accustomed to the quiet rhythm of the desert. He wasn’t expecting anything to change.

Yet, it was there, in the desert, that God showed up.

God gave Moses the seemingly impossible mission of leading the people of Israel out of their slavery in Egypt to the land that God had, long ago, promised to give the descendants of Abraham.

And the only way to get from Egypt to the promised land was through the desert.

The same desert Moses spent forty years walking.

He knew the land inside and out

All this time Moses thought he was just tending sheep but God was actually preparing him to lead His people.

Maybe God has a purpose for your desert. Maybe He’s using it to prepare you for something.

Let’s not squander this time. We’ll never get it back.

Maybe it’s time to turn off the TV, close out of social media, and put the phone down.

Pick up a book. Learn or refine a skill. Invest time in something God can use.

Let’s give Him as much as to work with as we can so we’ll be prepared when He shows up with our marching orders.