Advent Week Four: Christ and Love

    The last week of the Advent season is when we celebrate the birth of Jesus!!! This love provides the greatest peace, joy, and hope. At the beginning of Jesus' life, there were many signs of the Messiah: a bright star in the night sky, a virgin conceiving and giving birth to a son, and angels singing glory to God. 

Luke 2:14

"Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace to those on whom his favor rests." 

    As I have mentioned before, I was a child who loved receiving gifts. I remember always counting the gifts I had. I realize that these gifts brought temporary happiness. It could have lasted a long time, like when I got a DS, my American Girl Doll, or my computer, but it was still very temporary. However, the gift of Jesus brings eternal joy! Much of this source of joy has been a big part of my holiday season. I have reflected on the great hope I have in Jesus amid everything. I have worshipped Jesus this holiday season with great gladness. 

    At church this week, we talked about how we often reach for the good things and desire the good things, but we want more after receiving those things. "I will feel more happy once..." is often the mentality of the world today. Will you really feel happier once you find your spouse, buy that house, buy that car, have multiple streaming platforms for entertainment, have the best phone or computer, etc? These can all be great things, but they won't solve our problems or fill the longings of our hearts. The truth is that when our contentment is not found in the Lord, we may never really reach the true joy that we desire to have. Many people may seem like they have all the good things, but may still be unhappy. Our hearts are ones that eternally seeking, need eternal love, and need Jesus as the source of our joy.

    I am coming out of this holiday season gifted with the joy of knowing my Lord and Savior and realizing his humbling of himself to come down to earth. I am posting this blog after the New Year, but I believe that we can bring the hope, peace, joy, and love of knowing Christ as Lord into this new year. I don't really make New Year's Resolutions although I see every year as a time I want to grow. I choose a main focus and center my year on that rather than making a specific goal. Every year, the focus involves a way I want to grow in my faith, and things like mental, physical and spiritual health will follow it. Our souls are interconnected, so developing well physically and mentally is important throughout the year. I try new things and see what works throughout the year. This week at work, my boss told me that salad sales typically go up for the month of January and then quickly go down after about a month. New year resolutions typically fail most of the time when goals are too hard, too long, and not specific enough. Anyway, no matter if you make New Year Resolutions or not, it is important to grow each year and reflect on the past year. However, I think the reason why a lot of these resolutions fail is because people set a big goal for the year rather than set smaller more reachable goals. 

    Ok, I know this is a blog about Christmas and Christ and his love, what does this have to do about the New Year? Well, I would say absolutely everything. Last year, when coming out of a hard time in my faith, I had to have hope that this past year would be one of rebuilding and rediscovering who I am in Christ. I have had to realize the deepness of his love, even learning in Circuit Riders that Jesus had endured the various limitations of humanity still going to the cross for us. We are reminded of his love during Advent, a love so deep that we may not even know the full extent of its vastness. We have peace that Christ will be with us this year as new things both amazing and hard will come up. We have joy in knowing that the light of the world came during the darkness. 

    Whatever 2025 holds for us, let's remember this advent and Christmas season. Let's go into this new year realizing that we are deeply loved even when failing to meet a goal or when our expectations of how this year is going to go aren't met. There is grace and we can try again.  Let's walk in that grace of the Lord Jesus who came down to Earth so we can be saved by our faith in him. Let's remember through the good times to praise the Lord, to give him the glory. Let's remember through the hard times to lean into God, to lament biblically, and to remember the faithfulness of the Lord in our prayers. Advent week four is where Christ comes down to the World as a deep display of love. Let's remember that love all year before we are quick to judge ourselves or put ourselves down. It is ok to turn to God in repentance without having an overly critical mind towards ourselves. It is ok to not be absolutely perfect in following our goals or having things turn out the way we planned. Advent is not just 4 weeks in December, it is our rememberance through the year of mostly the life Jesus lived that led to the death Jesus died for us to be with him in eternity.