"…Behold, I make all things new…." Revelation 21:5
I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. Never have been and I’m not holding out hope that I will be.
However, I am an advocate of becoming new and beginning new journeys.
I recognize this has been a very difficult year for a lot of people in my life and ministry. I actually cannot think of one that has been any more difficult—likely a few have come close. There has been illness and death. Job struggles and job losses. Financial difficulties. Relationship problems. And many other struggles. Yet in it all, I have recognized hope and joy and, even peace. I have found things becoming new in the midst of the chaos, pain and darkness.
First, I need to say that the scriptures of the Advent season have become more alive for me than I can ever remember—and that’s saying a lot. I have in the midst of those passages, that we have shared together, recognized both pain and joy. There has been newness in the midst of darkness, discouragement, and ways that seemed to be blocked. Hope and joy have reigned in the midst of it all.
“I am sending an angel before you to guard
you on the way
and bring you to the place I have prepared.” --Exodus 23:20
Through those scriptures that we encountered this Advent, combined with the realities and experiences of 2011, I have found God breaking in through angels—or messengers or the Spirit—that bring hope in the midst of discouragement and despair. I have found those angels—those messengers of God, the Spirit of God—breaking into our lives and leading us to the places God has prepared for us like God did with the Israelites in the desert after they had been freed from slavery in Egypt and with the characters of our Advent scriptures. (Remember Zechariah and Elizabeth, Joseph, and Mary?)
But in the midst of all of God’s “breaking in” I know that we have to prepare room for God to break into our situations and lives.
I have watched God break into so many lives and situations this year—including my own—that it, at times, leaves me speechless like Zechariah. Other times it makes me shout for joy. And there are times when God’s breaking in is not so visible, but I know that it is present and real. That makes me pray, “May all know God’s breaking in. May all know peace and joy. May all have hope.”
Let it be so. But remember we must prepare the room for God’s breaking in and let go of what has continued to keep us in the dark, chaotic places in our lives of hopelessness in our lives. And prepare room for God to break in.
Isaac Watts got it right: "Joy to the world, the Lord is come!" -- which means, he writes, that every heart will "prepare him room" and that "heaven and nature" will sing.
Hopefully we have stayed awake enough during Advent to see God’s breaking in. Now, may we indeed prepare room in our hearts and lives for Emmanuel to make all things new in our lives and in the world. And then may we live out of that newness sharing joy and hope in the world.
Let it be so!
Making Room—
Looking Up and Living Out…
Holly
