If God showed up at your door right now and handed you a gift, would you take it?
Think for a minute before you answer…seams like a no brainer, but …
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Oh I Love This! What Is It?
Have you ever gotten a Christmas gift that forces you into that most awkward of thank yous:
“Oh I love this! … What is it?”
At the Otterbein Small House Neighborhoods where I serve as Chaplain, and here at Unruly Hope, we’ll spend the next few weeks asking that very question along with Zachariah, Elizabeth, Mary, the Magi, and others who were close by when Jesus was born.
These were people who experienced angel visits, guiding stars, prophesies and impossible pregnancies. If all these happenings were gifts from God, I can imagine their thank yous:
“Oh I love this! … What is it?”
What exactly are the gifts God gave to them? To us?
I’m reading a book called Five Questions of Christmas by Rob Burkhart. Pick up a copy if you’d like, and follow along. I’d love to hear your thoughts. And your questions!
The Key is Under the Mat
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
Matthew 7:7
Thanksgiving Day overflows, and yet the greatest treasures can hide under expectation, kitchen timers, and dog hair the vacuum just won’t get.
Every moment holds within it sight, smell, sound, touch and taste to be grateful for. Seek them out. Come on in to God’s goodness. Indulge.
Tool
So many things that are big to us are small in God’s eyes. What difference that I’ve been hurt at times? The bigger design is God’s design and the hurtful is God’s tool. Sometimes heavy and sharp because I am unyielding. A man is nothing but skin and bones. A pile of ashes soon. God’s life breathed into man brings life to God’s purpose.
The spiritual journey speaks from the inside out. God gives us our experiences because each individual life is what he wants to share. We let our pride get in the way.
In the name of God we shout out our opinions. That’s pride. We speculate on the results. Pride once again. It’s not our opinion that God wants.
Unruly Hope 