Today’s readings: Click on today’s date at http://www.usccb.org/bible/
Still. Ponder. Hush.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Second Week of Advent
Matthew 18:14
Jesus said to his disciples, “It is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.”
In other words, Jesus says it IS the will of our heavenly Father that every one of these little ones be found. Not ninety-nine, but 100 out of 100. Foundlings, we are. All of us. And God does the finding.
Jesus is sure of this. All these little children are at least as precious as the 100 sheep tended by their shepherd on the hillside. If one is lost, the shepherd will search until he finds that one. He will not rest.
And then. What does God say when he finds me? I know it’s been said many times, many ways. This is what Ann Voskamp in The Greatest Gift, thinks He’ll say: “I am your God, and I am one of you, and I’ll be the Gift, and I’ll take you. Take me!”
But as Ann knows, and I know, and you know, “it is possible for you to miss it. To brush past it, to rush through it, to now see how it comes for you up over the edges of everything, quiet and unassuming and miraculous – how every page of the Word has been writing it, reaching for you, coming for you.
“And you could wake on Christmas only to grasp that you never took the whole of the Gift, the wide expanse of grace. So now we pause. Still. Ponder. Hush. Wait. Each day of Advent, He gives you the gift of time, so you have time to be still and wait.”
Your voice says, “Cry out!” What shall I cry out? “The grass withers and the flower wilts, and the word of our God stands forever. Here is our God! In your arms, Lord, you gather us like lambs, you carry us in your bosom, you lead us home.
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1206
