What are you willing to give this Christmas?
At times I will admit I’m a bit ‘slow’ in the taking, but now I get this reoccurring theme that God is showing me this Advent season. For the past three days the My Daily Bread Devotional has been focusing on ways to free up your time in order to spend it with God. The ADORE Advent resource this morning also focused on making the effort to spend time with God and find a way to ‘relate’ to Him. “If we are going to develop a relationship with God we have to relateto God.” (from the Theotokos resource from Adore Ministries)
My Daily Bread states, “If you want really want to become more aware of my nearness to you throughout the day, you must do your part…Begin at once to examine what becomes between you and Me.”
God just wants our time. As we learn to ‘wait’ in Advent we must also learn to discard what is no longer necessary in our lives and make an effort to use our time wisely, first and foremost by nurturing our relationship with God so that when He does come again, we will be the first to recognize Him.
Pope Benedict XVI Advent Reflection:
December 2, 2010
Thursday of the First Week of Advent
Readings: Is 26:1-6; Mt 7:21, 24-27
“Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on
them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.”
Mt 7:24
Yet there is not only the final coming at the end of
time: in a certain sense the Lord always wants to come
through us. And he knocks at the door of our hearts: are you
willing to give me your flesh, your time, your life?
Homily in Celebration of the First Vespers of the
First Sunday of Advent, November 26, 2005
Blessings
Shannon