Postures Of Advent: A Daily Christmas DevotionalMfano

Some days the world does not feel calm and bright. It feels like it’s bursting at the seams. Everything just hurts, and we can’t find the answers why. 

We look around us to see if there is anything that can fix it or give answers to the brokenness we feel. We push the questions away because we’re afraid we won’t find what we’re looking for, but everything falls short. Nothing satisfies.

The psalmist David often felt similar. In Psalm 3, he writes about being surrounded by his foes, each one trying to convince him that God has abandoned him. But David speaks truth into these lies:

“But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high.” – Psalm 3:3

David’s confidence teaches us something valuable about our God. He is Emmanuel, God with us.

God with us in the sorrow, the pain and the questioning.

God with us when we can’t sing the worship choruses.

God with us when it all hurts too much and we have nothing left to give.

It is not in spite of but because of our hurt and pain that we celebrate this Christmas season, because we serve a God who knows pain, a God who has come to restore all things, a God who invites us to bring our heaviness and pain and lay it at His feet.

Kauany from Brazil has mastered what it means to raise her head to Christ alone in the midst of struggle. Starting when she was just seven years old, doctors found cancerous cysts that kept appearing for years in Kauany’s ovaries, spine, lungs and breasts. Even though everything around her was spiralling, Kauany kept her mind fixed on Christ.

“I really didn’t understand why God allowed me to get sick,” Kauany says, “but I knew He was good, and I believed He would help me live a good life, regardless of how many decades I was going to live.” 

As the years passed, Kauany continued keeping her head up through the ups and downs of treatments with her family and Compassion centre by her side. In 2018, she received some life-changing news. She was completely cancer-free! 

Let’s keep our heads lifted to Him in every circumstance. He is faithful to hold our fears and do far more than we could ask or imagine.

Pray: 

Jesus, sometimes the pain of my circumstances and the weight of the world around me make it hard for me to see the truth. Sometimes it’s hard to keep my head up to look at Your face and not at the messiness around me. Remind me that You are my ever-present help. I pray that You would daily remind me that Your yoke is easy and Your burden is light. 

Amen.