For those of you that know me personally, and not just through the social media beat, you would know that the time from Thanksgiving to the Epiphany is my favorite time of year. The decorating, the baking cookies and pumpkin pies, the family time that is spent together, the atmosphere changes in that time to hustle and bustle to cherishing and making memories.
Obviously, to one degree or another, this time of the year is a favorite for many people. But for me, the underlying thing that is my favorite is Advent-the preparation for the birth of our Lord.
Advent means coming, and during Advent we prepare for his coming. We aren’t just preparing our homes, but we are preparing our hearts and our minds. But many times as we prepare for Christmas, we get caught up in the Christmas hype and Advent gets lost in the holiday craze. As Christmas arrives, we are burnt out from the present wrapping, the cookie baking, home decorating, and party going. So our preparing for Christmas day, was merely superficial and didn’t prepare us for anything besides the parties and gifts, not the actual reason for the season.
Just take a step back and think about it, when we prepare for something; you take the time, you get yourself ready, you do whatever is necessary to anticipate the event. Then the event that you prepared for happens, but whatever you prepared for helped mold you and prepare you for the future. You may have made mistakes but you learned from them, you may have succeeded immensely but that time that you spent preparing taught you how to be here.
Matthew 25:1-13
As we are preparing, we are called to be in the here and now, so that when Christmas is over, we don’t just shut off what we were preparing for. Ultimately, our preparing is preparing us for something more. You see this preparation is not just preparing us for these four weeks of Advent, but this preparation is preparing us for when the Lord is born into the hearts of the faithful on a daily basis outside of Advent.
So I challenge you today, take this Advent by storm and challenge yourself to be prepared for Him.
What are you doing this Advent to prepare for His coming?
What is something that you can begin during Advent that you can continue after Christmas is over?
This year's study journal is broken into 4 parts.
To view each, please scroll to the middle of the above link.