Advent, Day Nine

Saturday, 7 December: ⁴ So Abram went, as the Lord had told him… Genesis 12:4a

So Abram went. Three words which tell me much about this man of long ago. He chose to go. He chose God. The Lord asked him to move on and he did. Consequently, God calls you and me friend. Sometimes God asks me to do hard things. Love my wife as Jesus loved the Church. Forgive when wronged. Share with those in need. Stand up for what is right. All of them require a choice on my part. Will I choose to follow where God leads? If I will choose Him, who knows what extraordinary things might happen.

Advent, Day Eight

Friday, 6 December: 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Genesis 12:2-3

At some time, most, if not all of, my generation endured being the bitter indignity of being the last guy chosen for a recess pickup game of kick-ball. There we stood, staring at the scuffed toes of our “Chucks,” waiting and hoping not to be last. Sooner or later it happened. We were the last guy. It was a painful humiliation. But, it did make me work harder to get better, and in an odd by-product, made me more aware of the need to create a feeling of teamwork. But none of us “last guys” ever forget that painful moment, a grim rite of passage. Oddly, God chose Abram as the conduit of His blessing. He chose to use an older, childless, itinerant, sheepherder hailing from Ur as His tool of choice. Abram was not perfect, a fact I find comforting. In fact, he struggled repeatedly with lying or more accurately dissembling. He was flawed and still, God chose him. Advent reminds me that God has a soft spot for the unlikely, the odd man out, those others ignored. God chooses for His own purposes the ones that others pass over.

Advent Day Seven

Thursday, 5 December: ² The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. Isaiah 9:2

We choose to walk in darkness. We rail against the dark, forgetting that it is our choices that wrap us in gloom and twilight. We choose own malignant desires and bemoan our fallen state. Even worse, we align ourselves with those that embrace falsehood and revel in the darkness, calling it light. We do these things despite the fact that they wound our creator. We raise our fists in defiant rebellion celebrating our freedom to choose. We ignore the pain and suffering our choices create among our fellow men and our God. Choice, the great freedom that elevates us above instinct-driven animal also plunges us into gloom.

Advent, Day Six

Wednesday, 4 December: ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Romans 3:23-24

I think highly of myself. I’m relatively successful. I’ve remained married to Christy for thirty-five years and raised three children, which have turned out well. I pursued a career in the Army, rising from the rank of private to Lieutenant Colonel. After retirement, I returned to school, earning a Masters and embarking upon a second career as a classroom teacher. Along the way I’ve faced a variety of challenges, surmounting some and enduring others. I pay my taxes, don’t cheat on my wife, and keep my lawn mown…most of the time. But I’m no better than any thug you care to mention. I have my secrets, moments of abject failure. Turn over enough rocks in my past and you find ugliness, secret sins, hidden rages, and ancient grudges. I clean up well, but all along the way I’ve chosen poorly. I’m desperately failed and broken. I can’t even reliably choose God. I stand a rebellious, needy sinner that cannot choose well.

Advent Day Five

Tuesday, 3 December: …she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Genesis 3:6b

“He chose, poorly,” intones the aged knight in the classic movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as the Nazi withers dies, and desiccated blows away. We use God’s great gift of choice rather haphazardly, all too often choosing in haste and choosing poorly. But very rarely do we choose ignorantly. We choose out of pride. We know better, and our willful choices generate Advent. Just as in the garden, the crunch of our poor choices echoes throughout our lives bringing pain, suffering, and death. And just as in the garden, a loving God replaces our pitiful fig leaves with durable well-made clothes. Despite our choosing poorly, He still chooses us. He clothes and feeds. He makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike, and truth be told, we’re all unjust. We stand there, faces stained with the juice of the fruit of our choice, and He still chooses to love. He still chooses advent.