Advent Season
Week 49 Day 1
Pray
Ask God to reorient you to Himself. Confess any known sin. Thank Him for His forgiveness. Be still and reflect on Jesus and His sacrifice for you. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart and mind to God’s Word. Pray for others in your life that they, too, would know and love God today.
Read:
Is. 9:1-7 Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan— The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.
Reflect:
“On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. “(Psalm 63:6) The Psalmist spoke of remembering God, thinking of him while lying in his sleepless bed throughout the night. The night was divided into three “watches” of four hours. To lie sleepless through the night indicates something was amiss. The Psalmist says that he was worried about his enemies who wanted to take his life. As he waited he remembered and he intentionally chose his thoughts and directed them towards God. Who has not waited for morning to come? Night can be a particularly difficult time to wait. The hours can drag by so slowly, the shadows can be so deep and ominous. When morning breaks and shadows flee it is often true that our spirits lift a bit. The circumstances may not have changed but our perspective has. The same kind of thing happens when a long, dark winter finally gives way to spring. Or a long time of personal darkness breaks into the light. Whatever the nature of the darkness the waiting is long and hard. We cannot choose to make the sun rise or the spring to hasten and we cannot always choose the circumstances that brought darkness to our lives to go away but we can always choose our thoughts. God has given us this. The Psalmist set his thoughts on God through the long night. This was and is a great strategy for waiting. He had plenty to worry about as he waited for the unknowns of the next day but with God as the subject of his thoughts he had even more to rejoice about. He remembered God, as he thought back in time to all that God had done in his life so far. He thought of God’s promises as his mind took him forward in time to the future. Our physical bodies are tied to time and place. We cannot take them backwards or forwards in time and we cannot be in two places at a time. But with our thoughts we can move around in both time and space. We can go to where God moved in the past and “see” him being faithful and powerful there. This is not creating mental unrealities this is taking a mental journey to a past reality. In a similar way we can travel in our thoughts to the God’s faithfulness in the future. We can rest on his promises ahead of us as surely as we can remember his promises fulfilled behind us. The prophets looked back, looked forward…then looked around. We must do the same. While we wait through the watches of the night…our thoughts must go to the reality of God past, present, and future. This is how we wait in the light through the dark night.
Pray:
(Personalize this prayer today; make it specific to the circumstances that face you.)
Ask God to lead you through His Spirit as you go through your day. Ask Him to bring to mind the truth of the gospel and its implications for what you will encounter today. Tell Him “Yes” to His will and ask Him for His power and protection to live this “yes.” Ask God to create and reveal opportunities to proclaim the good news today.