How is your Advent season going so far?
What helps you in the participation of Advent?
What do you read, listen to, or do differently during these four weeks of Advent, to help you wait, to anticipate, to slow down and Be Amazed?
Each year, Twila and I talk about ways we can connect with our children and each other with an Advent resource and how we long for that connection as a family. We choose a resource, we get out the candles and we read, sing, and pray together every night… not exactly.
It wasn’t until Thursday of last week that I read any Advent stuff with my family.
I wish it was different; I wish our family were on a different schedule during the weeks of Advent. But here I am typing this at church Monday evening while the rest of my family is at home.
Maybe this evening, Jonathan is reading the Advent story as Twila and Abigail sit on the couch listening attentively with Felix snuggled in between them half sleeping. But that probably isn’t the reality either.
If you are like me and your Advent hopes and desires are dashed before they even got started, don’t give up. Don’t quit, keep looking for opportunities to connect with God and others during tis Advent season. It is worth it, even if it isn’t every day.
I will share with you what I am reading this Advent season…
Kate Bowler writes in a way that resonates with my thinking, and I can relate too.
I usually learn something when I read John Mark Comer.
https://practicingtheway.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Guides/Advent+Meditations+2025.pdf?utm_source=Practicing+the+Way&utm_campaign=0409f99f30- AM+WK+2%3A+Peace+%28Aud%3A+AM%29_12_08_2025&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-143a51c32f-605290914
This book takes a fictional take on the familiar Christmas Story.
Roy Goble’s Junkyard Wisdom Advent book
What are you reading this Advent season?
This Sunday we have another special Sunday planned. We are blessed to have the Children’s choir and the Christmas drama… very exciting things!
Our Advent theme of… Be Amazed, we will look at Joy in the desert…
In our passage, God’s people are still in exile. This was during the Babylonian captivity, and they were begging for comfort. And God doesn’t disappoint… or maybe God does… It sort of depends on how we define joy and comfort.
Isaiah 55 is directly tied to Isaiah 53 and 54. In Isaiah 53, we see the Suffering Servant, and we see that this suffering is the work of redemption. Do you see the connection between suffering and redemption? In Isaiah 54, we see that “God’s people” are not just ethnic Israel, but all the nations. God wants all the nations to come and know God. And that leads us to Isaiah 55.
If you have some time this week, I invite you to read Isaiah 53, 54, and 55. And look for connection in things that we might not initially see any connection… joy, suffering, comfort, restoration, expectation…
What do you see?
Let’s talk about it on Sunday.
~ Pastor Dustin
