Are you weary today? Does it all just feel like too much? Can you rally just a little?
God sees you there, tired and maybe a little lost. He recognizes that you feel alone and abandoned, even if you are actually in the midst of a great number of people. (Moms who are surrounded by so many small people, but still feel lonely, I see you. He sees you.) He knows you’re a little uncertain today, a little lost, a little (or a lot) in need of guidance and sure counsel.
He came for you. He came to protect you from the wolves who prowl suburbia seeking the ruin of souls. He came to walk with you through the dark valley of unemployment, a sick child, a strangling addiction, the death of your beloved parent. The people of Israel waited and watched for the God promised by the prophets. They looked for the gracious God because they knew and you can know that, “He will be gracious to you when you cry out, as soon as he hears he will answer you. The Lord will give you the bread you need and the water for which you thirst. No longer will your Teacher hide himself, but with your own eyes you shall see your Teacher, while from behind, a voice shall sound in your ears: ‘This is the way; walk in it,’ when you would turn to the right or to the left (Is 30:19-21).”
Jesus came to give us everything we need: the real presence of the material Bread of Life that will feed our souls and strengthen us for whatever this day has to offer — or whatever this day wants to take from us. We’ll be strong enough. We’ll have peace. Because he has cured every disease and sickness, even the ones that no one sees.
So, rally just a little and go out to meet him. Receive his grace and also receive his mission, and make it your own. Go meet him with your prayers. Tell him everything on your heart today. Pour out every sigh and hope and fear. Give him even the things you usually hold back. Give him the anger. Give him the shame. He’s going to send you on a journey, even if you only travel from home to the afterschool carline. He wants you to move. Don’t stay where you are — travel forward toward him. You are his. He calls you his own as surely as he called the Twelve. He has redeemed you. Now, he wants to transform you.
He has freely given himself to you, and he wants to take up residence in your soul. There, he will flourish. Jesus will ask you to do the work he did while he walked with the Twelve. He wants you to have compassion on the sick and the wounded and the lost and the desolate. With compassion, he also desires that you take on the mantle of his authority. With confidence, move into your mission. As you encounter the Lord today in Scripture, take to heart his words. Pray over the passages in Isaiah. Know that he will be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. Ask him to let you see the seeds he wants you to sow. Pray that you will recognize the holy rain and be grateful for the life it gives.
I’m praying for you. I’m praying that this Advent will be a time of encounter, that you will seek him and find him and know him so much better at Christmas. With encounter comes transformation. He will put in you a new heart. It will be a heart full of compassion and a heart on a mission to spread the Gospel. It will be a heart that overflows into your household. And his peace will come upon that home.
Amen. Let it be so, Lord.
Foss, whose website is takeupandread.org, writes from Connecticut.
