Bring Advent Home
November 29th, 2009FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT
Sunday’s Reflection
IT IS NOT YET Christmas but Advent. This is a season in which we have time to anticipate the full story and meaning of Immanuel — God-With-Us — if we will take that time and use it well.
Take a walk through your home, room by room, and say an Advent blessing in each space, something simple like “O come, O come, Immanuel” or “Come, Lord Jesus.” Take your time, imagining how you will live in this time and place over the next few weeks in ways that could help you not hurry to Christmas.
- Pamela C. Hawkins
Simply Wait: Cultivating Stillness in the Season of Advent
From p. 29 of Simply Wait: Cultivating Stillness in the Season of Advent by Pamela C. Hawkins. Copyright © 2007 by the author. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission of Upper Room Books. http://www.upperroom.org/bookstore/. Learn more about or purchase this book.
Advent begins today. Join Beth Richardson for daily reflection and conversation at unclutteredheart.org.
Today’s Question
What will help you “not hurry to Christmas”? Share your intentions for this season of prayerful waiting.
Today’s Scripture Reading
Because the Lord is righteous and good, he teaches sinners the path they should follow. He leads the humble in the right way and teaches them his will.
- Psalm 25:8-9, GNT
This Week …
- Special Need:
- This Week: Pray for members of choirs and worship teams. Add your prayer to the Prayer Wall.
- Tips for Your Spirit:
- Advent Top 10. Advent begins today. Top 10 Reasons to Celebrate Advent.
- Saints, Inc.:
- This week we remember John Knox (November 24).
- Lectionary Readings:
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November 29th, 2009 at 6:21 am
When my children and I got out the decorations for Thanksgiving this year, I was happy to find our Advent wreath. Other years I’ve planned poorly and packed away the Advent wreath with the Christmas decorations. It meant a mad search for the wreath in time for the first Sunday of Advent.
How do you observe Advent in your home?
November 29th, 2009 at 6:52 am
This is such a beautiful passage from Pamela Hawkins! Not only do I desire to simply wait; I seek, this year, to wait simply. Amidst the noise and hustle and bustle of this world, God comes– again– as a little child. A child sent for one purpose alone: To bear our sin for us that we might enjoy the gift of eternal life in a new creation.
How cool is that?
Today we will get out the tree. I will put on the Christmas CDs– don’t know yet whether it will be John Rutter or Todd Agnew and friends.
My husband will put the tree together with a reasonably cheerful heart, as the branches sometimes do not exactly “fit.”
We will linger over each ornament, remembering whom it came from. We will set apart the ones given to our children, now grown and beginning lives of their own. Decorating trees of their own.
And in the midst of this, God is there, smiling with us, remembering with us– waiting with us.
Simply waiting. Waiting simply. With an uncluttered heart in this messy, cluttered world.
Come, Lord Jesus.
November 29th, 2009 at 8:13 am
This year, Christmas is going to have a lot more meaning to me. I’ve known that it’s about the birth of Christ my whole life, but I’ve always gotten caught up in the stress of shopping and everything.
Well, now that I’ve given my heart and soul to my Savoir Jesus Christ, I look at this season with different eyes. I’ve always loved the holidays, but now I’m realizing what a very important day it is to celebrate for everyone who knows Him.
November 29th, 2009 at 8:44 am
This year for the first time my daughter and I are putting up our Christmas tree early.She is home for Thanksgiving break and won’t be home again until late December.This is the first year since she went to college that this has happened.I can’t help but think it is reminder from God to enjoy each day in Advent.
November 29th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Invitations to parties and events, enough to fill every Fri.-Sat.-Sun. through early Jan. are on the table.
“You have to come.”, “You will miss all the fun!” That may be true, but our family will not miss all the stress, nor will we miss the true reason we celebrate CHRISTmas.
Most invites will stay on the table instead of going on the calendar in attempt to please everyone else. We’ve replaced self created stress with simpler celebrations and activities and the season has become far more meaningful.
People notice the difference, “You seem so calm in all the chaos of getting ready for Christmas! How do you do it? I’m always so worn out and frazzled by Christmas day!”
The chaos of Christmas? Ouch! That will make one think.
This year, celebrate Advent so we give the simplicity of Christ to another each and every day. Help others know the peace that surpasses all human understanding.
November 29th, 2009 at 10:42 am
I look forward with joyous anticipation to the coming of Christ in new ways in my life and pray for His revelation in the lives of my family.
November 29th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
I gave up putting up the tree years ago and set up a manager scene. I give to the Union Gospel Mission to supply a meal to the homeless in the name of each person on my gift list and those people, even the children feel good about it, and I don’t race around buying junk people really don’t want. They do the same for me so I save them some time and stress buying a gift for me. I have selected some devotional books to use especially this season in my devotional time. I basically dropped the pagan celebration in favour of my Saviour’s birth. I try to do nothing in this season that doesn’t bring glory to God.
November 29th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
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