Resting & Reflecting Amidst Advent

Rest & Reflect
I don't know about you, but I'm finding the Christmas season to be one of the more frenetic paced times of the year. Christmas parties, church events, gift buying, snow shovelling (depending on where you live), and much more all seem to make for a jammed-packed December. Please don't let ths sound like a complaint. I enjoy Christmas get-togethers, Christmas music, the snow and gift buying (especially receiving gifts!).

However, during the Advent Season, there's an underlying need within everyone to find the time to properly rest and reflect upon the passing year. For the Christian, there's an even more crucial need to reflect upon the passing year and how you've grown in the Savior. This post - I hope - will simply serve as some food for thought or even as an admonishment to invite you into a state of solitude and silence this Christmas to reflect upon the ultimate Giver and His involvement in your life.

The Question
Our interior posture towards the Lord is in many ways very similar to our physical nature. The less rest and food our body receives, the weaker and more dismal it becomes. One question we must ask ourselves is if we're at the point in our walk with the Lord to even want to nourish our inner-selves, our relationship with Christ. Of course the cookie-cutter Christian answer everyone would give is "Yes!" Probably not to sound un-spiritual or looked down upon by others in the faith. But forget that. This is a test of honesty with ourselves; it's a matter of transparency before God Himself and our lives. Do you truly hunger and thirst for God and His word?

Scenarios of Need
Maybe you're taking on too much in life right now at the expense of those closest to you (wife, children, etc.). Perhaps you're finding your emotions a tad more volatile than usual, feeling inwardly torn in differing directions in life. Or, maybe you are undergoing times of confusion, and God's presence in your life is being drowned out by everything else life is demanding of you right now.

Rest = Revivification
My encouragement to you is to go against the tide this Christmas season and find time (say, 30 minutes a few times a week) to get alone and seek after the Lord in solitude and silence. Whether it's writing in a journal, spending time in prayer, marvelling at a sunrise or sunset, talking to the Lord aloud and alone, or simply meditating on some scripture, make it a priority to sit with the Savior and rest in His presence. It's from this discipline of resting and reflecting before the Lord that our lives of redemption will be regularly revived and in turn, we'll be a people changed from the inside out.

Drew