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Advent reflection: "I will _________"


This Christmas "I myself will" ___________. 
1. This Christmas I myself will not put on 5 pounds.
2. This Christmas I myself will not buy my wife a small kitchen appliance.
3. This Christmas I myself will love my neighbors well.

What would you write in the blank space?  Would you write something like my examples:
 1. Which is doable but not likely to change the world or spread love to others. Or,
 2. Which also doable, but is the least a decent person in your situation should do. Or, 
 3. Which is wonderful, but honestly, we won’t do it nearly as well as we should. 

Then I remember how Christmas came to be in the first place. An ancient scripture prophecy of the coming Messiah, Ezekiel 17:22, "‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it; I will break off a tender sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty mountain.”

This Advent and Christmas season, we should think about what God did and does in the blank-spaces of our inability to love Him or others like we should. He Himself came from heaven and planted love in the blank-spaces of our hearts and our world. 

Grace,

Trent

Rev. Trent McEntyre
Parkside Community Ministry
St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church


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