Thoughts on Advent: The Birth of Beauty
I know I'm late to the party on this. Let's just say I'm operating on Hawaiian time this December. I have grandiose visions of blogging every day until Christmas and taking an introspective look as we walk through this Advent Season, but let's be honest: I'm sure to disappoint you. Still, I don't want to completely abandon that idea, and perhaps in years to come I will see it come to fruition. For now I'll start here and see what happens the rest of the month. Perhaps I'll surprise myself!
My family has been "doing Advent" for a few days now. This year I decided that Advent in our house would be more about anticipation and less about daily gratification; more about Jesus, less about us. I wrote a series of family devotions and corresponding family activities to be carried out throughout the month of December. I know I'm not a pioneer on this topic...lots of you have done this for years, and done it well! It's just the first time our family is using the Advent Season to - in a structured manner - intentionally teach and reinforce the biblical content that we have built our faith upon (beyond the Nativity story, that is) and disciple our kids.
A couple of months ago, my husband designed a Bible Timeline for our family on a long roll of white paper. We taught our kids that the bible was divided into two main parts or testaments, and how each testament contained many different books. We worked with the kids to glue on the Old Testament book names in order and then began talking about the stories they'd learn in Sunday School or Devotions and how and where they fit into the bible. We want to connect the bible "stories" that our kids already know so well with God's plan for humanity as taught to us in the Bible. Our plan is to color/draw a small picture representing each story we learn about and glue it onto the appropriate space on the timeline. So this year I thought our Advent curriculum could start at the beginning and walk through the Old Testament: outlining God's Rescue Plan from beginning to end, and utilizing our Bible Timeline.
Now here we are on December 3rd, in Genesis 2. We've spent the last 2 days reading and talking about how God created our wonderful world. The bible says He spoke it into being. That is the thought gripping me today. I've spent the past 4 months co-writing a pre-school age discipleship curriculum about God as Creator, and the thing that still renders me speechless is the fact that God said "Let there be light!" and THERE. WAS. LIGHT. All He did was open His mouth and entire galaxies spun into existence. Flora and fauna emerged from His creativity and beauty began.
Life itself began. God created complex strands of DNA out of dust, amazing body machines like the brain and central nervous system out of the earth, breathed his own breath into man's lungs and life began. And the Bible tells us that the first thing God did was to place Man in this garden, this paradise, this birthplace of beauty, and invite Him to keep it. Cultivate it and keep it. When I read between the lines I think God also intended man to enjoy it. To share in His pleasure of how good it truly was! To recognize the creativity and beauty in it and as a result turn to acknowledge the Creator Himself who indeed made it so good. The author of goodness. The One who birthed beauty.
Have you done that lately? From ocean sunsets and swaying palms, to rainy seasides and majestic mountains, to hardened winter fields, crisp blue prairie skies and the whitest skiffs of first snow...have you seen the creativity of the hand of God in His world today? Have you witnessed the handiwork of the One who gifted you with it all?
More importantly, have you turned from all that beautiful creativity today to acknowledge the Creator who indeed made it so good?
There's still time...
My family has been "doing Advent" for a few days now. This year I decided that Advent in our house would be more about anticipation and less about daily gratification; more about Jesus, less about us. I wrote a series of family devotions and corresponding family activities to be carried out throughout the month of December. I know I'm not a pioneer on this topic...lots of you have done this for years, and done it well! It's just the first time our family is using the Advent Season to - in a structured manner - intentionally teach and reinforce the biblical content that we have built our faith upon (beyond the Nativity story, that is) and disciple our kids.
A couple of months ago, my husband designed a Bible Timeline for our family on a long roll of white paper. We taught our kids that the bible was divided into two main parts or testaments, and how each testament contained many different books. We worked with the kids to glue on the Old Testament book names in order and then began talking about the stories they'd learn in Sunday School or Devotions and how and where they fit into the bible. We want to connect the bible "stories" that our kids already know so well with God's plan for humanity as taught to us in the Bible. Our plan is to color/draw a small picture representing each story we learn about and glue it onto the appropriate space on the timeline. So this year I thought our Advent curriculum could start at the beginning and walk through the Old Testament: outlining God's Rescue Plan from beginning to end, and utilizing our Bible Timeline.
Now here we are on December 3rd, in Genesis 2. We've spent the last 2 days reading and talking about how God created our wonderful world. The bible says He spoke it into being. That is the thought gripping me today. I've spent the past 4 months co-writing a pre-school age discipleship curriculum about God as Creator, and the thing that still renders me speechless is the fact that God said "Let there be light!" and THERE. WAS. LIGHT. All He did was open His mouth and entire galaxies spun into existence. Flora and fauna emerged from His creativity and beauty began.
Life itself began. God created complex strands of DNA out of dust, amazing body machines like the brain and central nervous system out of the earth, breathed his own breath into man's lungs and life began. And the Bible tells us that the first thing God did was to place Man in this garden, this paradise, this birthplace of beauty, and invite Him to keep it. Cultivate it and keep it. When I read between the lines I think God also intended man to enjoy it. To share in His pleasure of how good it truly was! To recognize the creativity and beauty in it and as a result turn to acknowledge the Creator Himself who indeed made it so good. The author of goodness. The One who birthed beauty.
Have you done that lately? From ocean sunsets and swaying palms, to rainy seasides and majestic mountains, to hardened winter fields, crisp blue prairie skies and the whitest skiffs of first snow...have you seen the creativity of the hand of God in His world today? Have you witnessed the handiwork of the One who gifted you with it all?
More importantly, have you turned from all that beautiful creativity today to acknowledge the Creator who indeed made it so good?
There's still time...
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