Tag Archives: Christmas

Been a while …

It’s been a while since I added anything here. Health issues are mostly to blame. I’m doing much better. It can be very challenging to want to do anything when feeling lousy. So many projects got left way back on the back burner. Now it’s a matter of trying to figure out where I was, where I am, and where I want to go. I’ve had plenty of time to think about the transitoriness of life generally and how fragile our existence really is. It is a very sobering experience.

Throughout my journey of these past couple of years I have felt God’s presence and loving care of me. I am so grateful. There were several things that I felt he showed me. Firstly, I was not alone. Jesus was with me, and would never leave me nor forsake me. Secondly, that he was carrying the bulk of my pain. I didn’t have to bear it by myself. Jesus is the true burden bearer. Phew, this has proved to be a real comfort and encouragement, and continues to be so. Thirdly, I am loved. And, nothing can change that. How wonderful!

So, there we are. We have hope because Jesus came as a human baby, lived a human life, and died to save us. Then marvelously he rose again shattering all the limitations that have keep us from being all we can be.

Life continues. Blessings this Christmas time.

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Jesus pleased God!

When Jesus was baptized (as recorded in Mark 1), God spoke from heaven saying, “You are my beloved Son, and I am fully pleased with you.” Jesus had not yet begun any sort of ministry. All he’d done was be born, grow up and get baptized by John. Yet God was pleased with him, and fully pleased at that!! That pleasure had nothing to do with what Jesus did or his ministry. That set me thinking. How many of us grew up with a father (and/or mother) who was fully pleased with us, and let us know it? I doubt there’s many. Yet we spend much of our lives unconsciously striving to please, or to be so relevant (important, indispensable, useful, whatever) and so ‘please’ the one whose love and pleasure we so long for. This might not make much sense to you but I’m thinking there’s a connection to relevance deprivation and the fact there’s nothing we can or need do to earn the Father’s love and delight. It is already ours. Jesus made sure of that.
Now we are coming close to Christmas. It’s just weeks away. It is a good time for us to reflect on the why’s of why he came. He left a pretty wonderful place to be born poor in rather questionable circumstances, and then to live a short life building the foundation for us to enter into a fresh new relationship with God the Father. A relationship where our sins are forgiven and where our Father God is pleased with us.
Take heart! You are greatly loved. You don’t have to strive to be loved… you just are.

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