Prince of Peace

Today in my morning prayers I explored Jesus, the "Prince of Peace."  I focused on the word, "shalom," a  word that means so much more than our English word, "peace."  I read a commentary on "Jesus Christ, the prince of peace" by Joon Surh Park which helped me understand how complex the Hebrew word is.  Shalom connotes wholeness, restoration of relationships that have been broken by our failure to acknowledge the presence of God in our lives, and a return to the pattern that God intends for our lives.  Only through opening our hearts to God can we have the shalom that Jesus, the Prince of Peace, exemplifies.  May God's shalom be yours this Advent and Christmas season.

The First Sunday in Advent

This morning I began my discipline for Advent, in which I explore some of the names referring to Jesus.  Today I looked at the name, "Wonderful Counselor."  I read a sermon in which the term "counselor" as it applied to Jesus was discussed.  I was struck in this sermon by the idea of Jesus as one who is a wise counselor, one who has experienced the hurt and joy of every human's existence, one who is able to prescribe exactly what we need, who advised us to love God, ourselves, and our neighbors and who expanded the meaning of who a neighbor is, who taught us that we must forgive others just as God forgives us, who taught us that true greatness comes from serving others.  I had never thought of Jesus in the role of a human counselor despite having sung the words in Messiah many times.  This morning's meditation on the words "Wonderful Counselor" convinced me that I was doing the right thing by centering my morning prayers and meditation on the names of Jesus.  Who knows what new perspectives thinking about what Jesus means to so many different people will reveal to me this Advent?

Thanksgiving

My family is spending Thanksgiving with relatives in another town, and I woke up excited about the day that we will have with our extended family.  My prayer this morning is that we don't become so caught up with enjoying each other and the good food that we forgot the source of the blessings that are ours today and every day.  I wish anyone who may read this post a day filled with gratitude for the wonderful gifts that God has given us, even if you are not an American celebrating this day of special significance in American history.

Ordering My Days

The past several days have been quite busy, and this morning I prayed that I would be more open to God's leading in the ordering of my days.  I find that I am spending an inordinate amount of time on the computer and yet am finding little fulfillment in what I am doing.  I see that this time is taking away from my time with others, and so I have prayed that God would lead me to discern what is necessary and beneficial to me in my computer use and what needs to be set aside for other times.  There are so many wonderful blogs that I want to follow, I want to post regularly on my own blog, and I want to use my computer to find needed information and for my own recreation.  I have confined myself to using the computer only in the early morning as an aid to my prayer life and for recreation and to using the computer during other times in the day when it will not take my attention away from others and from work that I want to do, and I believe that God is leading me to a healthier use of all my time, including my computer time.

My prayer each day is that I will allow God to order my days.  I have not reached the point that I have been able to turn the planning of my days over to God completely.  I still make plans and then have to pray that God will bless the plans I've made or reorder them according to God's will.  When I do make plans before I've prayed about them, I ask for acceptance of whatever may come, even when my plans are altered, praying that I will recognize God's hand at work in the re-ordering of the plans I've made.  I find that I am becoming less rigid about sticking to my previously made plans when circumstances alter them and have been able to let go of the frustrations that used to bedevil me when I was unable to follow through on my plans.  I know that if I continue to seek God's leading, I will be able through God's grace to turn the ordering of my days over completely to God.  Until that transformation is complete, I am content to learn the discipline of having my own orders for the day altered.

Advent Is Almost Here

Today's project in our home was to decorate for the Holidays.  We decided that when we return home from our Thanksgiving visit with family we wanted to return ready for the beginning of Advent, since the Sunday following Thanksgiving is the first Sunday in Advent this year.  Most of the work is done, though we do have a few things to finish up tomorrow.  I'm exhausted, but excited.  I love the Holiday season, but this year I feel a special anticipation of the coming of Christmas.  I am longing for Christmas to come and sense that Advent will be the time of preparation that it is supposed to be.  For me, like most Americans, Advent is usually treated as part of an extended Christmas celebration, but this year Advent will have a special significance for me, complementary to, but distinctive from, Christmas.  During this Advent, I'm asking God to lead me to understand some of the differences that the birth and ministry of Jesus have made in our lives, to contemplate what life might have been like had Jesus not come into the world.  As we decorated our home, I became aware that none of the joys that these decorations represent would be present in our hearts if Jesus had not been born.  May the coming season of Advent be a time of repentance, contemplation, and preparation for me and all who follow Jesus.

Answers to Prayer

Today didn't go as planned.  A friend dropped by this morning unexpectedly and spent the morning visiting with us.  All that I had planned to accomplished was set aside, and, to my surprise, I wasn't upset at all.  I sat down, had a cup of coffee, and rejoiced that our friend had stopped by.  Earlier I had prayed that no matter how my plans were altered by the circumstances of the day, I would accept whatever came with joy, and I discovered that this morning I was able to do that, with God's help.

This afternoon I worked hard at cleaning up our yard.  The first "crop" of autumn leaves had fallen, and I was anxious to get ahead of them before they became too much to manage.  Ordinarily, this is a job I despise, but this afternoon I felt differently.  As I worked, I remembered that I had prayed that I would be able to offer every task of the day as a joyful offering, and I sensed God transforming my attitude of thinking of my yard work as drudgery into a pleasant experience.  Though I was completely exhausted by the end of the afternoon, I felt great satisfaction and I knew that my morning prayers had been answered.

Asking Questions, Seeking Answers

Lately, I have been reading the gospel of John and, as I compare it in a very cursory way to the synoptic gospels that I read first, I find it to be perplexing, raising more questions than it answers.  The purpose of this gospel seems to be quite different from that of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and I will have to spend much more time seeking answers to the questions John's gospel raises for me.  I have read the gospels many times before, but the act of writing summaries of the passages I read and listing questions that are raised has made me read them in a completely new way.  I look forward to going back to compare the four gospels directly and then exploring in detail possible answers to the questions that have been raised by reading research of scholars and commentators who know far more than I about the interpretations of the gospels' teachings and the backgrounds against which the gospels were written.

For me, understanding more about the life and ministry of Jesus is increasingly important in my faith journey, and I long to be more knowledgable about everything about the life and times of the man who continues to be a great mystery for me.  After a half-century of calling myself a Christian, I still have so little understanding of who and why Jesus was and is.  I feel certain that I am not alone in feeling this way, and it is something about which I pray every day.  I would love to hear the thoughts of others about how best to explore what the gospels have to teach about Jesus and how others who are full of questions seek to have their questions answered.