You want me to do what?
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I Can only take so much
I Can only take so much
As we move into the Holidays it’s easy to get distracted. Easy to let the things that we have to do. Get in the way of the things we should do. We pick up so many things over the Christmas season. Things that have to be done. Gifts that have to be bought, cards that have to be sent, dinners that have to be planned and cooked for, people that have to be visited, even church services that have to be attended. We pick all these things up and we put them on our shoulders and we decide that this is what Christmas is.
The thing is there is a weight that should be present as we move into what this entire season is all about. It’s just not the weight we think about.
The Hebrew word for weight is kavod, but here’s the thing that same word is also the Hebrew word for Glory.
We have a choice to shoulder the weight of all the things that Christmas is supposed to be or to lean into the Glory or the weight of what Christmas should be.
The Good Shepherd can carry you through this season of Advent in a way that allows your life to experience needed and meaningful hope, peace, joy, and love.
The Mary in the video had plans. Two kids in College a time of freedom after it was all done. A new phase of life was about to be entered into, and suddenly a weight came down on her and her husbands shoulders. A plan that was not at all the plan and yet.
God reminds us in his word that the stuff we have going on, the things that we aren’t ready for, the hard things and the not so hard things, the scary things the sad things all of those things while many times big and daunting to us are not so to him. Far from discounting what we are dealing with God shows us that he is there.
A person’s heart plans his way,
but the Lord determines his steps.
Isn’t that awesome. Notice it doesn’t tell us not to plan, but it tell us that sometimes those plans will be altered and God is there he is the one that is altering them and when God alters our plans well.
But as it is written,
What no eye has seen, no ear has heard,
and no human heart has conceived—
God has prepared these things for those who love him.
Dwight D Eisenhower said it like this.
“Plans are worthless but planning is indispensible.” In other words you have to plan but you also have to realize that that plan will often end up not looking at all like you thought it would. Things will change, circumstances will get harder, and it is in those times that we can lean into the truth that God has a plan for us and when the weight hit’s he is there to pick us up and put us on his shoulders just like a shepherd does carrying one of the sheep that is unable to walk.
Leaning in
Leaning in
The thing is God wants us to realize the truth that comes in this season. It’s why the story of the birth of the son of God is even in scripture to begin with. It’s why we read and learn what happened to Mary. God showed her what was going to happen he showed her the plan that he had for her life and that it was going to be one that affected all of humanity.
In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man named Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you.” But she was deeply troubled by this statement, wondering what kind of greeting this could be. Then the angel told her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Now listen: You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end.”
Mary asked the angel, “How can this be, since I have not had sexual relations with a man?”
The angel replied to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. And consider your relative Elizabeth—even she has conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called childless. For nothing will be impossible with God.”
“See, I am the Lord’s servant,” said Mary. “May it happen to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her.
Mary leaned in even when all the things that she knew and understood, all the plans that she had all the questions that were going to be asked, the stares the head shaking the rumors all of it she chose to lean in and let God cary her through the hard time that was to come, And at the end of all that. Well look how Paul says it:
When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
HOPE
HOPE
That was God’s plan. To do something in a way that was totally not what would be expected. The Messiah was coming. Mary was the one who knew. The only one at this point who knew and the weight was large heavy in fact but the Good Shepherd was going to pick her up on his shoulders and cary her.
Mary was carrying the Hope of all humanity. It was through Jesus birth, his birth to a teenage Jewish girl who had never been with a man and yet was going to have a baby. The Baby, God incarnate, the one that would enable us to be adopted as Sons and Daughters of God.
Jeremiah said it like this.
For I know the plans I have for you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
The Jews were in exile, Little did the Jewish people know that this hope that they were going to experience was going to be a hope that was spread to all man kind.
Light the Candle.
This Week’s Challenge
This Week’s Challenge
Find one thing on your Holiday list of things you just “have to do” replace that one thing with time spent reading about Mary and listening to Mary did You know. DO NOT PICK UP THE HAVE TO LEAVE IT ALONE!