Stable Foundation

I’ve still turned the Christmas lights on this morning. I’m not quite ready to give them up. There is relief, though, that I can turn down the intensity of wanting to acknowledge each day of Advent with a blog post and return to my “Sunday and Wednesday” plan. It feels like a long exhale after heavy exercise. You do it for all the right reasons but it still feels good to be done. The benefits always come after… So I decided to look at what I’d written last year after Advent had ended.

From 2014
“I Thessalonians 1:3 We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

There’s something of a letdown now that the intensity of Advent is done. There’s a sense of needing to come off the mountain high of this last month. That’s just what I Thessalonians 1 has offered me. It’s a reminder that my words are “work that comes from faith,” and …effort that comes from love. They brought me to that high point of of my Advent and Christmas celebration in those days and now this realization; there is no mountain high without the “stable” foundation, the…perseverance that comes from hope in our Lord Jesus Christ IN the presence of our God and Father.”

One word appeared in both the paragraph I began with and last year’s writing…intensity. I liked finding I’d felt that intensity again this year. It’s the “Stable” Foundation that’s a benefit from the “exercise.”