Third Thursday of Advent

Advent Reading

Psalm 30; Isaiah 54:1-10; Luke 7:24-30

I have spent far too many years doing what I thought was important or doing what I wanted when I wanted.  I was giving God a little part of my heart, afraid to give it to him fully. Thinking that if I did, I would have to do something I did not want to do, or not be able to do or have something I wanted. Or I might lose something I did not want to lose. Now in part that could be true, because what God thinks is my best may not be what I think is best. I don't like to wait. I don't like to be in want.  Does anybody?

But little by little I am giving him more and more of my heart. I would like to say that it is all his. That I hold nothing back, but if I look deep into my heart past all the layers that are me, I know I have not yielded all of it.  

Okay friends, this is last years posting for The Third Thursday of Advent.  As I began to read this I thought, surely I will need to write something else.  Surely I have progressed past this point in my relationship with God.  Surely I can say I am "wholehearted" by now.  I realized that though I may be a little further along on my journey (though there are days where I feel like I have gone right back to the beginning) I am still on a journey.  And I am slow to give up my ways.  But I see little glimpses of loosening.  It takes time to release years of holding onto ones life...at least for me it does.  But God is gracious, and patient, and loves me where I am.  He loves you too...where you are.

For even if the mountains walk away and the hills fall to pieces, My love won't walk away from you, my covenant commitment of peace won't fall apart. The God who has compassion on you says so.

Isaiah 54:10

Father help us to believe you, in your love for us.  Help us to trust you wholeheartedly.  Help us to experience your love in a tangible way. You know our hearts better than we know them ourselves.  Help us to see into  the many layers of our hearts, to see what keeps us from offering them fully to you. Father will you plant and grow the desire for you in our hearts today and in the days leading up to Christmas and all the days after.

Immanuel - God with us - always