Wednesday, Dec 4

Scripture: Matthew 2:13 (GNT) – “After they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph and said, ‘Herod will be looking for the child in order to kill him. So get up, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you to leave.’”.

Message: Our friend and great contributor to many things in our congregation, David Vatcher, can always be counted on to inspire us to think about Christmas in September. It occurred to me that several of my most recent devotionals were done while feeling pressured by world events. As I looked back to some of my earlier Advent devotionals, I came upon these two as examples:

2020 Advent Devotional “Waiting”: “Waiting. 2020 seems to be all about waiting. Quarantining in place. Waiting to worship in our church again. Waiting for the elections. Waiting for the vaccine. Waiting for Advent to begin. Waiting for Christmas to come. Waiting for the next tough challenge that seems to have filled 2020 from beginning to end!”

2023 Advent Devotional “We Can’t Wait!”: “As I write this, we are in day nine of the outbreak of violence in Israel (October 7, 2023). Stories of hundreds being massacred. Chilling images. Agonizing stories. Fearful thoughts come at us from many directions. The world sometimes tries to make it almost impossible to focus on the Light.”

Early today (October 10, 2024) our congregation started out hearing the oppressive roar of hurricane force winds in our town from Hurricane Milton, the strongest hurricane to hit this area in 100 years! Hopefully – as I write this, I cannot be certain – none of our congregation were injured, or suffered huge loss of property or possessions.

It seems it’s always something, doesn’t it?

Kim and I have a saying; “It isn’t brain cancer!”. What that means to us is that, when we are feeling pressed or even “put upon,” then all we have to do is look around and we will almost immediately see an example of someone so less fortunate than we are, reminding us that we just need to “get over it!”.

Prayer: Lord, just as the Angel urged Joseph to “Get Up”, help us to feel compelled to rise up again and share the good news of Jesus Christ here in our wonderful community as we help those less fortunate to recover from this and future challenges! Amen.

Bob Showalter