Author: Howie Meloch (Page 3 of 29)

So many things pull our attention – phone notifications, full garbage, current caseload numbers, etc.

In Luke 10:38-42 we read the story of two sisters, one pulled by the distractions (many good things), one drawn to focus on Jesus. My attention is similarly pulled and the invitation is the same, draw my focus to Jesus.

Not sure about for you but I have a lot of very real tasks on my list each day. I was reminded recently, the supernatural is actually more real then the natural. My invitation – seek the very real presence of Jesus today. I do not disengage with the real tasks around me but do them with attention on him. May it be so.

Thanks for your continued partnership! As a small token of my gratitude, click the link below to receive free Advent Devotional Series from one of our staff, Bette Dickinson. Over the last few years, I’ve been blessed by Bette’s work in my own time with Jesus, and I’m excited to share her work with you all now!

The Making Room Advent Devotional was created specifically for this season to help you encounter God’s life and make room for the new thing He may be doing in our midst. The devotional will take you on a journey through the birth narrative in Luke with original paintings, breath prayers, spiritual practices, and reflections written by Bette. 

To get this free gift, click here and enter your name and email and it’ll arrive in your inbox. May you encounter Jesus in rich ways this season.

As I reflect on how to be attentive to God in this season, I was blessed by this reflection from my colleague Bobby Gross. May God use it in your life as well.

Near the end of the final Narnian Chronicle by C. S. Lewis, a battle rages on the slopes of a hill atop which sits a small shabby stable. But once through the wooden door, the characters find themselves in a capacious, Edenic landscape with blue skies and fruitful groves. In their bewilderment, one of them squints back through the slats of the door at the night-darkened battlefield from which they had escaped and remarks with a wondrous smile.

“It seems, then, that the stable seen from within and the stable seen from without are two different places.”

“Yes,” said the Lord Digory. “Its inside is bigger than its outside.”

Not unlike a certain stable in human history, Queen Lucy goes on to say.

In my book Living the Christian Year I titled the Advent chapter: “Enlarged in the Waiting,” after a phrase in Eugene Peterson’s translation of Romans 8:12-25 in The Message:

“…waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, do not see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.”

As we have entered the season of Advent, I am praying that God would enlarge us with his presence within, a spirit stronger than we often feel, and open our eyes to his workings in a realm bigger than the circumstances we can see.

This year, the ambit of our lives have been reduced and the brokenness of our society exposed. Disruption and loss, sickness and death, injustice and animosity, fear and uncertainty weigh on us all. As 2020 limps to conclusion with ever shorter days and longer nights:

• we lament the darkness and difficulties of our times (How long, O Lord?),
• we long for light to increase and goodness to prevail (Your kingdom come),
• we look for signs of hope and moments of grace (Open my eyes, O Lord),
• we let God work his enlargement in us (Let it be with me according to your Word).

Perhaps the pandemic’s damper on this usually frenetic season will afford each of us greater space to rest, to reflect, and to immerse ourselves in the themes of Advent; to find the quiet joys of Christmas and the profound mysteries of Incarnation.