TO CHEW ON: “Prepare the way of the LORD
Make straight in the desert
A highway for our God” - Isaiah 40:3
How do we “prepare the way of the LORD” during this busy season?
If we want Christmas to be more than just a time of family and cultural celebration, we may find it necessary to ask ourselves if any spiritual road maintenance needs to happen in our lives.
My Thompson Chain Bible has a category called “Readiness precedes blessings.” I’ve distilled thoughts from some of those verses in an acrostic poem. Maybe you will find some things in it to help you “prepare the way of the Lord / Make a straight … a highway for our God.”
PREPARE
Provide a path for God
Rend your hearts, repent, return, reconcile
Envision with obedience-washed eyes
Prepare trenches for God’s blessing
Allow yourself to sit; allow the dead to rise
Reap the crop of God’s righteous rain
Enter—washed, white, every bit prepared
(Verses on which these are based [slash indicates line break]: Isaiah 40:3; Matthew 3:3 / Joel 2:12-13; Matthew 5:24 / John 9:7 / 2 Kings 3:16-17 / Matthew 9:14-17; John 11:39 / Hebrews 10:12 / Revelation 7:13-14.)
PRAYER: Dear Jesus, help me to prepare my heart for this beautiful season of remembering and celebrating Your incarnation.
MORE: Laurel’s story
My friend Laurel and her husband have two children with autism spectrum disorder. Listen to her story of how Christmas was ripped away, and then returned to her as she learned a new way to celebrate the season.
Laurel Archer | Advent from Christian Life Assembly on Vimeo.
Laurel and some of her friends write an Advent blog each year. It’s updated regularly throughout Advent at Four Parts Hope.
*********
Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment