Advent 7

The Bible is full of real life stories and it does not paint a pretty picture of the ugliness of our world. God works mysteriously to the human mind and through ordinary people and circumstances but shows up in miraculous ways. God is so good and faithful, even in the turmoil and trauma. The worst of times in my life have been experiences of sensing our Father’s presence in very personal and intimate ways. During one traumatic event, the question came to me “What will God show us about Himself through this?”  It has stuck with me in several other situations.  Esther 4:14 came to mind as I read today’s devotional-

“For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

Who knows how God will lead as we share how His kingdom is impacting our hearts?

“The Christmas story is not intended to teach you a bunch of moral lessons that require no history to be helpful. It’s a story that is rooted in real history, real acts of God that are intended to provide for you and me the one thing we desperately need: moral rescue. The Christmas story is about a God of glorious grace on the march, invading human history with the grace of redemption.” - Paul David Tripp, Come, Let Us Adore Him: A Daily Advent Devotional