On the
second week of Advent our virtue is love.
It is the greatest of everything: affection, virtue, connection to
God. Imagine what it was like to live in
the world that God created from His heart of love with the purpose of nurturing
every need and delight a human could experience. Adam and Eve, alone, experienced what this
world was like when love was incorporated in every tiny cell of creation. Because of sin, God’s love has been obstructed. Our emotions have become corrupted along with
everything else about us. In Advent we
celebrate the love of God poured over the earth by the incredible lengths God
went to in order to restore us to His love.
He took on human flesh in the form of an embryo in the womb of Mary, His
chosen mother.
Imagine
Mary’s corrupted human emotions when she was visited by an angel from
heaven. Who knows what she had been
taught about the Messiah? She probably
lived in Nazareth based on the Prophets words that He would come to that part
of Israel. Did she know He would need to
be born in Bethlehem? Could she even
have wished that God would call her, or anyone from Nazareth to be the mother
of the promised Messiah? Her emotional
reaction to the surprise of the angel was fear.
Her emotions told her to be on guard and worried, to feel that she was
in danger. She didn’t run, rather she
allowed her mind to calm her emotions when Gabriele told her not to be
afraid. She did not object to his
pronouncement that she was highly favored by God. Though our carnal emotions fight against the
reality of God’s love, Mary demonstrates how to overcome the despair that
permeates our hearts when we feel our unworthiness before our Holy Creator
God. It is unreasonable for any one of
us, including Mary, to consider ourselves highly favored by God. Our minds will lead our hearts to resist the
good feelings this greeting would create.
In order for Christ to reign over our emotions, we must first allow Him
to reign in our minds. We must believe
that God is who He says He is and that He will do what He says He will do.
Gabriele
moves on with his message from God that Mary has been chosen to be the mother
of God’s Son. Mary’s emotions become
settled and her mind needs explanation to understand how the next statement
from Gabriele is going to work since she is a virgin. He tells her a truth that is impossible for a
finite human mind to comprehend. It is
only her love and trust in the God who sent Gabriele to bring this message that
results in her willingness to submit herself fully to God’s will.
When we
are stuck in a cycle of troubled human emotions, a good direction to restore
our souls is to consider God’s love.
Even when we see no evidence of God’s love, when we cannot feel His love,
we can believe that God loves and favors us beyond reason. God’s love brings comfort to every despairing
soul. We need patience and trust and our
tears or fears will be replaced by assurance of His love through a peace that
passes understanding. This is when we
know that Christ has reigned over our emotions.
I can
only experience God’s peace when I believe that I am fully loved in spite of
the circumstances that disturb or frighten me.
Copyright © 2018
Deborah R Newman
teatimeforyoursoul.com All Rights
Reserved.
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A daily devotion for Advent and Christmastide. Advent
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