Good morning…
In yesterday’s post, A Pleasant Surprise, I shared with you the introduction to our 2019 Advent devotional, With God Weather Life. During this Advent season, we as a community will celebrate together the four Sundays leading up to Christmas and savor each day in between, starting today. In case you have not yet signed up to receive our daily devotionals (which will take the place of our SueToYou blog posts from today through December 25th) please add your name and email address to our list of subscribers by touching upon this easy-to-follow link: www.NorthsideUMC.org/devo. Any personal responses to our morning messages will come to my church email, SueA@NorthsideUMC.org, so feel free to reach out to me as God’s Spirit moves you.
Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God (2 Peter 1:20-21, NLT).
Moving, speaking, waltzing in step with the Holy Spirit of God, savor with me this sacred season of Advent 2019.
…Sue…
December 1 · Waiting This Winter
I love the beach in the winter months. Crowds shrink and hush. Sweatshirts cover swimsuits. Chilly air replaces scorching sun. One book I have taught several times in our living room has graced many a bedside table for decades now. Revisit with me this rhythmic revelation.
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At first, the tired body takes over completely…one descends into a deck-chair apathy. One is forced against one’s mind, against all the tidy resolutions, back into the primeval rhythms of the seashore. Rollers on the beach, wind in the pines, the slow flapping of herons across the sand dunes drowning out the hectic rhythms of the city and suburb, timetables and schedules. One falls under their spell, relaxes, stretches out prone. One becomes, in fact, like the element on which one lies, flattened by the sea; bare, open, empty as the beach, erased by today’s tides of yesterday’s scribblings…
One never knows what chance treasures these easy unconscious rollers may toss up, on the smooth white sand of the conscious mind…
The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach — waiting for a gift from the sea (Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea, 10–11).
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This season of Advent waltzes with the winter beach. Patience, patience, patience is what Advent teaches. Patience and faith. Morning by morning, we lie bare, open, empty — waiting for God’s gracious gifts to roll upon our private shore.
But if we hope for what is still unseen by us, we wait for it with patience (Romans 8:25, AMPC).
