As Little Children - By Carrie Valentine

    

    Before saying bedtime prayers with my granddaughters one night, I mentioned the fruit of the spirit.  The youngest, who was nine at the time, said that she knew what they were and proceeded to name each one after pausing to get the last one.  Then she proudly asked me, “Grandmother, ask me how I knew!”  Was it from Sunday school, or from the lessons of her sister who goes to a Christian school?  “No! It was from your church, up front!”  Indeed, we have banners at the front of the chancel, one of which lists the fruit and they had visited our church a few weeks before.  As I sing in the choir, the banners are above my head and behind me.

      Of course, I know the fruit, but could I list them all promptly?  I discovered I had to refresh my memory.  Another day I was saying the list to these girls, and the granddaughter who goes to a Christian school interrupted saying “You forgot goodness” because I was saying them in a different order that was easier for me to remember.  So, back to the Bible to learn them in the correct order.  Now I can list them readily: “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galations 5:22). 

     When two sisters get into an argument, I sometimes ask them to tell me the fruit of the spirit in the hopes that it will evoke better behavior.  But, I found that after memorizing the list, I was convicted when I was impatient or cross that I needed to exhibit better behavior.  Did not Jesus say somewhere that we must enter the Kingdom of Heaven as little children?  (Matthew 18:3).

 Prayer:  Lord, thank you for your gracious mercy and your comforter the Holy Spirit, who fills me with your grace.  Empower me to receive this gift more fully!

God Is With Us - by Cindy Singleton

When my two older daughters were still in high school they taught swimming lessons during the summer.  Although they worked at the same community college pool, they never taught the same kids. 

Alyssa was a natural for toddlers and preschoolers. They clung to her right from the start, blew bubbles as soon as she asked them to, and kicked off the side of the pool just to please her. 

Jessica, on the other hand, preferred to teach older kids. She especially liked the ones who had already learned basic swimming strokes and simply needed to fine-tune them with the help of her instruction.

Because it was summer and she was a teenager, Jessica wanted both a job and a suntan.  She didn’t mind the agony of teaching six consecutive classes under a blazing hot sun because she considered the rewards to be so sweet.

At the beginning of each class my daughter greeted her students and then pointed them to the deep end of the college’s Olympic-sized pool. Then she positioned herself on the side of the pool and fixed her lifesaving device in her lap.  From her instruction/suntanning spot she eagerly gave commands, gestured, encouraged, and cheered on the five or six adolescents under her care. In other words, she enthusiastically taught and suntanned while they swam, floated, and treaded water.

One day Jessica returned home from her job totally exasperated.  The swimming director had told her to get in the water with her students.  No more sitting on the ledge working on her gorgeous suntan. He wanted her in the water where the kids would feel more secure in her presence.

Jessica was beyond frustrated. According to my daughter, the kids were learning to swim, and were swimming very well, thank you.

I smiled.  And I pondered this thought: God gets in the water with us.

God has never left me to navigate life on my own. He's always been there, whether I was mindful of Him or whether life was going great (meaning nothing was stressing me out) and I smugly began to feel like “I’ve got this." Those moments of confidence never lasted long. Inevitably out of nowhere a new wave of temptation…or fear…or anger…or even sorrow…took me by surprise.

In those times of crisis I’ve been most aware that God never leaves me. I never had to go find Him. I didn’t have to hope He would show up. He was always there, and His strong arm always reached down and held me or rescued me or prodded me onward.

In the Bible, Jesus is called Emmanuel, “God With Us.” “And behold, a virgin shall being forth a child, and shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted means, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). 

God came to Earth wrapped in the skin of a tiny baby so He could live with us and touch us and be with us. 

God didn’t sit on the sidelines.  He could have. But instead He got in this mess of a life with us. He came in the form of Jesus and sent His Holy Spirit to live with us forever. He is constantly guiding, holding, instructing, touching, reassuring, convicting, comforting, and leading us with hands that are gentle and sure and strong and righteous.

In the joys…in the sorrows…on the mountaintops…in the storms…in the car…in a business meeting…in the middle of a fight with a family member…in a doctor’s office…when we’re tossing and turning at night…God Is With Us.

We Are God's Hands and Feet - by Bill McLarty

A month or so ago I decided to take an additional part time job as a school bus driver for Ocean Springs. So far, in my short tenure, I have learned a couple of things.

1. Middle School and High School students are not nearly as happy about Monday mornings as I am. 

2.Elementary students have absolutely scary amounts of energy….. ALWAYS. 

I had the opportunity to replace a driver who was retiring after twenty or so years of service. Stepping in to fill Mrs. Jewel’s driver’s seat has been quite the undertaking. She is the only bus driver that my students have ever known, and in their eyes, the best bus driver that has ever existed. 

My first two weeks were mostly about learning the route and getting know the students. I made my fair share of mistakes, making wrong turns, missing stops, etc. I also had to set some ground rules for some unruly students and assign seats. To say the least, these things did not make me “awesome” to some of the students. 

After a week or so, a couple of my 5th & 6th graders were frustrated that I instituted these rules so they started a chant in the back of the bus....”We want Mrs. Jewel”...”We want Mrs. Jewel!” This was followed by some of the younger kiddos chanting “No! We want Mr. Bill.” 

It would be fair to say that I was a little frustrated. I drove through the route, and a couple of stops later I was letting students out and a little girl gave me a small note as she was getting off. On the note was a sketch of me driving and her sitting in a seat, with the caption “I  ❤️  Bus Driver!”

It absolutely made my day! The encouragement from that simple little note gave me what I needed to have a much better week.. 

As Christians, we are given plenty of encouragement in the Bible. My favorite is found in Hebrews. 

“So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.”

Hebrews 10:35-36 NIV

While there are lots of words of encouragement in the scripture, let us remember that we are to be the hands and feet of Christ as well as the shoulder to lean on, the ears to hear and the mouth that speaks encouragement to those who are struggling this Christmas season.

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”

1 Thessalonians 5:11 NIV

Hungry? By Donna Wilkerson

When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.  Mark 6:34 

As I’m writing this, our Monday night ladies Bible study group is reflecting on the story of Jesus feeding the 5000. Mark sets the stage for a story in Mark 6:30-44 by telling us that Jesus and the disciples were tired and hungry. I know what tired and hungry looks like for me and it’s not pretty, in fact, if I’m honest, it’s very ugly. You know the Snickers commercial “you’re not you when you’re hungry”? I completely identify. Now back to Mark 6, Jesus had compassion on the people while the disciples urged Jesus to send them away. Typical human response, as is mine, just dismiss the problem and not deal with it.

This Advent season I’m going to lean on Jesus and work to have compassion instead of complaints.  Our true character is displayed when we are under stress.  Hebrews 4:15 tells us we have the Role Model for behavior when we are tired and hungry and under stress: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.”

If you find yourself tempted, tested, and tried today, stop and ask Jesus for help.  He has been tempted in every way we can be, yet He resisted them all.  We can trust in His goodness, faithfulness and love.

Prayer: Dear God, I am tempted every day to be self-sufficient, trying to provide for all my own needs and resisting the vulnerability of sharing my desperation with others.  Help me today to lay my needs at Your feet, and show me the ongoing miracle of how you provide. Amen.

Adoring Christ the Lord Daily - by Rhonda Pepper

Has anybody had an earworm?  I mean an earworm that lasted for ten years or so? When you have a song that is stuck in your mind and you sing it over and over and over again?  My son, Tate, had the one of the most chronic earworm cases that I have ever heard tell of from the age of around 7 until he left for college over a year ago.  It was not an annoying song, but a rather well-loved one.  I don’t even think he was aware that he was belting it out most days. Going up or down the stairs or walking in the hallway upstairs it was almost inevitable that I would hear the first line of the same song, day in and day out. 

“O come all ye faithful” set on repeat for days and weeks and months and years.  Sometimes he added the “joyful and triumphant” part if he was in a particularly good mood.   I was always so happy when we would get to sing it in church at Christmas because he loved it.  And I did, too.  And then, it made me think.

 “O come let us adore Him.”

 Mr. John Francis Wade must have known the importance of adoring Christ, or worshiping him, because he repeated it THREE times in the chorus.  The rest of us might have used the same line three times because adore and Lord sorta kinda rhyme and I gotta get this thing finished!! No, he was really on to something.

The shepherds really got to go and adore the real live, with skin and bones, tiny baby Jesus at the urging of the angels.  Nothing in their lives could ever top that! They weren’t told to come and see the baby Jesus or come and look at the baby Jesus or go and take a casserole to your pals, Mary and Joseph because they are too tired to cook.  They were called to ADORE HIM!  Adore can mean love, esteem, glorify, or revere.  They were called to honor Him.  To be passionate about Him.  To sing his praises and to worship Him.

Christmas can be such a stressful time for many of us.  Instead of feeling joyful and triumphant, many times we are so bogged down in the parties, presents and poinsettias that we lose sight of what we should really be celebrating.  That the little tiny baby whom the shepherds were called to exalt was sent here as God in the flesh.  He deserves every last drop of our praise during this season, and throughout the whole year.  Maybe my own personal choir boy will keep reminding me of this on a daily basis.

Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord - by Soni Buckalew

Read Matthew 3:1-3

The year was 1971. A black vinyl 33-rpm album spun round and round on a portable record player. In my hand the abstract cover proclaimed in a groovy font- “GODSPELL – A Musical Based on the Gospel According to St. Matthew ” The phrase, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord,” circled my middle school mind. Each time I dropped the needle on that portion of Act One, a shofar reverberated off the walls of my bedroom and ushered in a dozen repetitions of the one and only lyric of that song. “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.”

Advent is the liturgical season when we “Prepare the way of the Lord” by recalling the events leading up to the birth of Christ. Scripture passages about Mary, Joseph, shepherds and wise men fill sermons, Sunday school lessons and Christmas programs.

But before all of those key figures in the nativity we learn about a faithful priest named Zechariah and his elderly wife, Elizabeth. Through angelic proclamation, just like his cousin Jesus, the birth of a child is announced.

“He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just and make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

                                             Luke 1:17 RSV

After Elizabeth gave birth to her son, Zechariah named him John and delivered this eloquent prophecy to those gathered around to celebrate the blessed occasion:

"And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, when the day shall dawn upon us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”                               Luke 1:76-79

As a grown man John prepared his people for the ministry of Jesus by telling them to “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Jesus was baptized by John and at once the voice of his Father God proclaimed, “This is my Son, with Him I am well pleased.”

God is pleased with you, too! So much so that He sent Jesus to draw you to Him. Prepare the way of the Lord in your life. Just as we clean and decorate to celebrate Christmas, make time to clear the cobwebs from your heart, move from disobedient to wise and present yourself to the Lord as a person prepared.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, Thank you for sending Jesus to be the light in our darkness. We celebrate the birth of your son, our Savior, the Prince of Peace. Amen

Thought for the day:

The composer, Steven Schwartz, commented, “GODSPELL is about the formation of a community which carries on Jesus’ teaching after he is gone.” How is our community of faith carrying on Jesus’ teaching?

No Room

And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. Luke 2:7

This season beginning at Thanksgiving and ending with Christmas has always been extremely difficult for me; you see, I was born to a family with no room for me.

I endured abuse which was unspeakable yet I learned to wear the mask of a smile under ALL conditions. Family became the F-word to me. I learned love and service from friends and church.

Having to pretend to be happy and love Christmas while watching Norman Rockwell images of loving families, the difference between my reality and the images was too much for me. Even now in remembrance I have great difficulty with the season . . . I continue to wait for December 25th when the wait is over.

Jesus was born into a world without love; He brought light into the darkness. As I remember this season, I remember the love and light He brings into my life. May I bring the light into the lives of others. May I remember those who also found “no room in the inn” and open my heart and understanding to them.

Prayer: Lord, us remember those who were born into families with no room in their hearts for them. Amen.

* The author of this precious devotion originally declined to write for this publication, but felt God speak, so the author was obedient! I pray there are others who will be inspired by the honesty.