Advent is near

My Lord cometh.  In the deepest darkest nights of the winter year a remembrance of a baby’s birth is celebrated at Christmas. Not a God from a far. Not a machine like presence. No cog in a wheel. But a God become human in the womb.  A visitting God reviewing his creation and the co creators he made.  Obviously not all were good.  Among his own he couldn’t gather even 10 Good men. As one was too fond of money as those who are addicted to money are. The power seekers and the crows who like the shiny.  One day he would say you must give up your wealth to follow me to one who was addicted to gold and pomp but wanted too the love that was this God.
Do not be afraid, he said.  Love God. Love your father as yourselves.  I am the son of God. I am the son of Man.  From his teachings the trinitarian God was born. For when he left this one with the father son of God said he’d send the Holy Spirit to comfort us.
When I think of Jesus Christ, a name which means ‘god within’ and ‘god will come again’, I remember I’m not alone and that my life is playing hide and seek with God. When I forget the spiritual I am sucked into the morass of the material.  I lose sight of the incredible lightness of being in the gravity of the earth dwellers.
God is love.  God is omniscient and omnipotent, transcendent and imminent.  When I am still I know God. Be still and know that I am God. I run this refrain through my mind as a reminder. I can be one with God in such a moment
In advent I celebrate the coming of Christ. The coming of Christ is the coming of light.  In winter we fear the sun will not return. The superstitious childish ancient fear that this is the last of summer and the last of days comes over me in the darkness of the rain. Driving home at night I am troubled.  In the morning I can celebrate the dawn but by the time I leave my work the dusk is gone and it’s as if the sun has been stolen. I feel already like I’m back in the arctic with hardly a few hours of daylight.
Constantine worshipped the sun before he became a follower of Christ.  Love is light.
“Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for Thou aren’t with me.”
I had that sense once of being alone. I’ve been so often alone without people but for a moment I thought that I was outside the sphere of God. I’d become so hardened and scarred and had like Satan turned my back on God. I was fascinated by my own shadow. How big it seemed. But then I turned around and again began walking towards the light and didn’t feel alone again.
Amazing Grace. “I was lost but now I’m found”
I love the idea of Grace. That I the seeker of God am being sought. I’m chased by the hound of heaven. Even today the Birth of Christ is coming at me as I am slouching as a beast towards Bethlehem.  I don’t feel particularly good. I value truth and live in a world of increasing lies and those who don’t even know their lies.  Worse there are those entrusted with the protection of truth who have fled from their service, bought for so few pieces of silver.  But then who am I to judge? So often I have denied God even before the cock had but crowed.
I am a ‘sinner’. To sin is to miss the mark.  I do that which I don’t want to do and I don’t do that which I want to do. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The ‘outcome analysis’ of my endeavours shows the deviations that are still me.  I am flawed though seek perfection , impatient when I would be patient, unkind when I would be kind, quick to rage when I would be more forgiving, speaking when I would be silent. The list is endless.
I pray today that I might be the man my dog thinks I am. I pray today that I might be more loving and kind. I pray to day that I would expand my personal kingdom in service of you. I pray that I could be a better follower and be better in my work and service.
Christ above me. Christ below me. Christ behind me. Christ beside me. Christ in front of me. Christ around me. Protect me Lord.
I pray that I do the best and be the best in my person and my work that I can be this day.  Thank you Lord for all your blessings. Thank you for my parents and family, my teachers and my friends. Thank you for this life Lord, this sacred and wondrous adventure.  Thank you Lord Jesus. Thank you God. Holy Spirit Come!