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 On this twelfth day of Christmas, I bid you adieu. Thanks for sharing in these thoughts and prayers with me.
Monday, January 11, 2016 marks the beginning of the Church’s first week of “ordinary time.” Just a month later, on February 9, Mardi Gras gives way into Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Forty six days later, on March 27, we will celebrate Easter.
By then, we trust God that spring will be sprung. See you again on February 10!
 In this is love
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me …
1 John 4:9-10
God sent his only-begotten Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us.
Why do bad things happen to good people? That begs the question, “Are there any good people?” Even Jesus asked, “Why do you call me good? There is no good but God.”
I forget that as Philip Britts says, “All our human goodness is relative; there is nothing in us immune from evil.” I think I’m good. And because I think I’m good, I also think I’m a good giver. That motivates me to use some of my power, competence and gifts to benefit the less fortunate.
But the Christmas story depicts us as receivers. Here is how William Willamon puts it: “God wanted to do something for us so strange, so utterly beyond the bounds of human imagination, so foreign to human projection, that God had to resort to angels, pregnant virgins, and stars in the sky to get it done. We didn’t think of it, understand it, or approve it. All we could do, at Bethlehem, was receive it. A gift from a God we hardly even knew.”
Rather than solving the mysteries of Jesus’ birth, or ignoring them, I am simply called to say, “Yes.” Thank you, Lord. Let it be unto me according to thy word.
When the mysteries swirl around us and songs touch our tongues, and the beauty of the earth becomes the beauty of the Lord becomes the beauty of all things, it is then I am receiving. Not in power but in poverty. God’s endless riches, his cattle on a thousand hills, his trees of the field clapping their hands, are all given if I can just receive. This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his son.
Your atoning sacrifice, Lord, requires such a simple thing of us: that we know ourselves as sinners and even then, let you love us into your holy homeland, where we were always born to live. So beautiful, Jesus. So simple and so fine, made with us in mind, your love reigns and rains and reaches into all our souls.
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1432
