Wow, God! (An Advent Journey)Sample

WOW, GOD. YOU CAN CHANGE ME.

Experience

I messed up today. I was rude. I was more than rude. I was mean. I lashed out in anger just to prove I am better than someone else. My words, my actions just took over. I had to be right at any expense. The cost was hurting someone else. I felt justified. At least, I did then. But now? Now I realize the cost wasn’t only at someone else’s expense. The cost is mine, too. It’s the season for giving, for gifts. I wasn’t anyone’s gift today. I’m supposed to be working on change and pursuing meaning, but my actions don’t seem to be changing. 

I want Advent to be a time of change, a new way to live, but I don’t know how this is going to work. I read one thing in the Bible, then seem to forget it when I need it. I can’t change myself. I need someone greater to do a new, complete change in my life. Maybe that’s the lesson for today. The lesson for every day. I’m not the one who is able to change myself. I need help. I need God. I need God to help me with this new thing.

Wow, God. You can change me.

Respond

Do you wonder if things will ever change? If you’ll ever change, or if God can really change you? There’s a Bible verse from the prophet Isaiah who speaks for God when he says, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:19) God is doing a new thing, especially where life feels like a dry wasteland. He did a new thing like this on the night Jesus was born, and He’s doing a new thing, a special thing, in you now. 

Pray

Dear God, I want Your new and special thing in my life. I can’t change on my own. Help me be changed by You as I continue to read and think about what You say in Your Word. Amen.