Advent Devotional Dec 6
Week Two:
Creating Shalom means Sharing Love
Tuesday, December 6, 2022
“The Family that Loves Together Learns Together” – Read Romans 15:14-21
“I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another.” (v. 14, NIV)
When our daughter was ready for kindergarten, we enrolled her in our public school’s “magnet” multicultural school. We were excited, but it meant she would have to ride a special bus to school each day—with a 20-mile round trip! But our daughter said she wanted to try it.
On the first day of school, we all waited for the bus: my wife and me, our daughter, her younger brother, and her great-aunt. We waited and waited. But because of confusion at the start of a new school year, no bus ever showed. Our daughter missed her first day of school.
That waiting, pregnant with anticipation, seemed like an eternity. When we ask our now-adult daughter about this, she doesn’t remember the waiting or even missing school that day. She only remembers that what we had promised her soon came true: she experienced an amazing year of new adventures, friends, and teachers (and really long bus rides!).
Advent is about waiting for something wonderful to happen, something that comes at just the right time. Advent reminds us that our timetables are not often the same as God’s. Learning these kinds of lessons, says Paul in Romans, is always a family affair. And it’s especially in the family of God that we truly understand this. Each of us needs a loving family to surround us and help us make sense of this life. Sometimes this family is our bio-family or our foster or adopted family. Sometimes it’s our good friends. But it can always be our family of faith in Christ.
This, then, is how we wait for God: we do it together. Kindergartners, moms, dads, great-aunts, brothers, sisters, you, me — all are welcome, and all are needed to instruct each other in the ways of God’s love.
Lord, help us sing our prayer together:
“Bigger and better is My love / That I have bestowed unto you / And now it’s for each one to share of / That all things might now become new. / We are the family of God / Yes, we are the family of God / And He’s brought us together / To be one in Him / That we might bring light to the world.” Amen.
(“We Are the Family of God.” © 1976, John Byron)
Anonymous
Local Church Member, the Heartland District
“The Family that Loves Together Learns Together” – Read Romans 15:14-21
“I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another.” (v. 14, NIV)
When our daughter was ready for kindergarten, we enrolled her in our public school’s “magnet” multicultural school. We were excited, but it meant she would have to ride a special bus to school each day—with a 20-mile round trip! But our daughter said she wanted to try it.
On the first day of school, we all waited for the bus: my wife and me, our daughter, her younger brother, and her great-aunt. We waited and waited. But because of confusion at the start of a new school year, no bus ever showed. Our daughter missed her first day of school.
That waiting, pregnant with anticipation, seemed like an eternity. When we ask our now-adult daughter about this, she doesn’t remember the waiting or even missing school that day. She only remembers that what we had promised her soon came true: she experienced an amazing year of new adventures, friends, and teachers (and really long bus rides!).
Advent is about waiting for something wonderful to happen, something that comes at just the right time. Advent reminds us that our timetables are not often the same as God’s. Learning these kinds of lessons, says Paul in Romans, is always a family affair. And it’s especially in the family of God that we truly understand this. Each of us needs a loving family to surround us and help us make sense of this life. Sometimes this family is our bio-family or our foster or adopted family. Sometimes it’s our good friends. But it can always be our family of faith in Christ.
This, then, is how we wait for God: we do it together. Kindergartners, moms, dads, great-aunts, brothers, sisters, you, me — all are welcome, and all are needed to instruct each other in the ways of God’s love.
Lord, help us sing our prayer together:
“Bigger and better is My love / That I have bestowed unto you / And now it’s for each one to share of / That all things might now become new. / We are the family of God / Yes, we are the family of God / And He’s brought us together / To be one in Him / That we might bring light to the world.” Amen.
(“We Are the Family of God.” © 1976, John Byron)
Anonymous
Local Church Member, the Heartland District
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