The Wake-Up Call

Peace is not found in the absence of anxiety, but in the presence of God.

Not if something bad happens, but when something bad happens, He will be our peace.

Remembering the big picture grounds us in a grander and greater narrative than we could ever imagine.

Advent also invites us to look ahead, to anchor our hope in Christ’s return and the restoration He will bring.

Christian hope is not aimless optimism. It is the hope we were saved into, a hope that gives us the strength to wait patiently for what we do not yet see.

This season of waiting invites us to embrace the tension between our joy in what we have received already and our hope for what is yet to come.

Faith in God’s promises does not mean the absence of questions.

Waking up requires us to pause, to ask the hard questions, and to make room for the light to break in.

Following Jesus does not mean an easy life; however, it does lead to a life of power and purpose, joy in the face of suffering, and profound, even world-changing, love for God and people.

Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. 

As Jesus was and is, so we are and shall become—words becoming flesh.

Abba Father, thank you for your Son, Jesus, who breathes into us the breath of life—the Holy Spirit.

Because they broke ranks with respectable religion and associated themselves with a crucified Messiah, they will live in the eternal respect of the risen Lord (and ours).

Truth has a side. We find it by listening to his voice. 

The Father puts all the freight and weight of his love for the world on his Son. Jesus puts all the freight and weight of the world’s faith on his followers’ love for each other.

This is what the disciples of Jesus do. They put down pretense, confess their ignorance, and ask one another questions in order to grow in their faith and understanding.

I have called you friends.