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Advent Day 9: A Haven and A Rescuer

Jonathan Shelton is a great friend and a key member of The Parish. He is the Spiritual Director of Desert Sessions and Founder of Sycamore Abbey. We have dreamed with he and his wife Candi for months about what exactly this church will look like. We value their voices in our lives and the life of this church more than we could put into words. 

image-17I think one of the most valuable things about journeying with one another through the Advent Project is the self-examination that takes place; specifically about how we normally stumble into and out of such a monumental celebration of our savior. I hear it in the posts we’ve read so far, and I am experiencing it as I read along and try to lean in and make a real connection with Jesus through these weeks.

My normal Christmas season is made up of a combination of stretching myself too thin, trying to make Christmas feel like a great movie and realizing that it feels more like a mediocre grade school production where everyone’s dressed in bath robes, someone’s holding a plastic baby Jesus, and the aluminum foil covered Christmas star is slowly tipping over on it’s flimsy wire.

As I read through these scriptures today, I’m reminded of how incapable I am of being good enough. That my dependency on Jesus is not seasonal. That the Israelites were bound to a law that required copious amounts of doing in order to obtain righteousness – it was not a given. The grace that Jesus has extended to us is something I take for granted daily.

As I read through the Psalms today, I think of the reverence that is displayed for a God who is a haven and a rescuer and a provider. I can only hope as I take a brief moment and let that land solidly on my heart today, that the same sense of gratitude and awe will be the center of my focus over the coming weeks.

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