God Was THERE 12/12/15

Ephesians 5:8-14
8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord.

I’ve mentioned before how words often spark thought for me and today was an interesting variation on that.  I read verse 8 several times before I realized I’d been subconsciously reading an [in] before the word darkness.  Dropping the [in] changed my whole perspective on what I had read. Darkness is not a place I was “in”  but the far more personal “what” I was.  It says it right there but I missed it.

That made me re-read this passage with far more attention to specific words like “were once…but now you are.  They sounded like a very hopeful change to me.  “WHAT I Was” changed to “What I WAS.”  Three little words and a simple change of emphasis that made a world of difference on a personal level and then became my connection to Advent.

That’s exactly what God did.   He changed the world’s emphasis with three little words. Many devout people watched and waited for Messiah long before Bethlehem.  They believed “GOD was there.”  It was the birth of Jesus that changed our emphasis to “God Was THERE.”