1. We have recommendations on movies, books, recipes, etc updated regularly on our sidebar now. Take a look!
2. We’ve uploaded some pictures we took today from our ‘date’ to Edinburgh Castle here.
3. We hope to have some regular features and book reviews on our blog; but that requires more than our average procrastination time or general blogging time! Let us know what you’d like more of, our loyal readers!
This thing called living out the gospel has really got me. Right now, I feel and think so many things. I feel content and satisfied, yet lackluster and boring in my persistent wish to keep a low profile and blend in. Yet I itch to do something different, really live out my faith, to be seen as someone who is gracious, loving, truthful, considerate, honest, intentional, sacrificial. I want to be sort of crazy. I’m sick of so much ‘blah Christianity’. I’m sick of side-stepping issues that shouldn’t be side-stepped. I feel alone at times in this pursuit to be radically intentional about reflecting the gospel in every single area of my life - like how we won’t ever have a TV, what products we will and won’t buy, where we’ll live, if we’ll have kids, how we’ll raise them (if we have them), how we don’t want to make lots of money and in many ways look for ways to be poor because it puts us in a place to be dependent - utterly dependent - upon God. (And I know my selfish self too well to know that if I don’t try to implement these sorts of behavioural or life choices, I won’t gravitate towards a closer relationship with God, won’t preach the gospel by my life, won’t be hospitable to the unlovely, but would wallow in my self-righteousness and pride.) And if our whole lives revolve around glorifying God and enjoying Him forever, shouldn’t I (and we) think about the tiny practical issues and how they align with the larger goal of my life - the only life I’ll ever be given to live? This is no small thing.
But I feel sometimes like I’m in a glass box and all these ‘deny yourself’ ideals can’t get out. I get inspired by the truth of the gospel as it is preached and sung on Sundays and then Monday it’s gone out of my head. It’s really this simultaneously being a saint and sinner thing, the warring nature of our sin nature against our new nature in Christ alone. But shouldn’t the new man be winning out more and more as we grow? Is anyone else thinking these questions, having these struggles, trying to deny themselves and considering how Sunday’s sermon applies to Monday morning?
Although I feel frustrated, I also feel calm and know my every need will be provided for because God is faithful. It’s not because I deserve any of it; isn’t great that all of God’s promises to us are kept for us by Him and not contingent upon our faithfulness? Because I am so unfaithful. 2 Timothy 2:31 says, “if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.”
Advent is marked by a spirit of expectation, of anticipation, of preparation, of longing. There is a yearning for deliverance from the evils of the word, first expressed by Israelite slaves in Egypt as they cried out from their bitter oppression. It is the cry of those who have experienced the tyranny of injustice in a world under the curse of sin, and yet who have hope of deliverance from a God who has heard the cries of oppressed slaves and brought deliverance!
It is that hope, however faint at times, and that God, however distant He sometimes seems, which brings to the world the anticipation of a King who will rule with truth and justice and righteousness over His people and in His creation. It is that hope that once anticipated, and now anticipates anew, the reign of the Anointed One, the Messiah, who will bring peace and justice and righteousness to the world.
Part of the expectation also anticipates a judgment on sin and a calling of the world to accountability before God. We long for God to come and set the world right! Yet, as the prophet Amos warned, the expectation of a coming judgment at the “Day of the Lord” may not be the day of light that we might want, because the penetrating light of God’s judgment on sin will shine just as brightly on God’s people. (from Christian Resource Institute)
Isaiah 11:1-10
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,
and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,
and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.
They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.
Matthew 3:1-12
In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said,
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
make his paths straight.’”
Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Come, Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel’s strength and consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art;
Dear desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.
Born Thy people to deliver,
Born a child and yet a King,
Born to reign in us forever,
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.
By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone;
By Thine all sufficient merit,
Raise us to Thy glorious throne.
Here you are, earlier than planned…it’s time for Ashley’s random and inconsequential thoughts!
- We arrived home to our flat today - after having had a lovely few days’ visit at the Hays while repairs were being made to our flat - and found that everything had been completed! They even painted (well, painted some of the trim in the wc - gotta love the craftsmanship here!) in the wc and showerroom! It looks like the shower is draining better - not amazingly, but better - and I haven’t quite decided if the linoleum that they replaced our cork flooring with in the wc is better than the cork. 
- We ate a lot of Indian food tonight. We went to what used to be “Indi-n” and is now “Passage to India” (haha like the book). They had a set meal for two people that included poppadoms, pakora, a main meal (we both had lamb - I forget the Indian name for our dishes), and coffee and chocolates. Plus we split a 1/2 litre of their house red. Stuffed to the gills. But good stuffed.
- In other food news, we’re celebrating Thanksgiving again with the Hays and McFarlanes Saturday. And Sunday we’re going over to the Stubbs’ (an Aussie family) for lunch - more food! Monday the diet is starting again!
- I just spent my ‘productive time’ being non-productive and talking to Kay on the telephone.
- I am getting blamed for the 3rd bottle of wine we had on Tuesday; girls, it was a group decision!
- Bryce is all clogged up and stuffy-nosed but is feeling better than Wednesday.
- Princes Street is all Christmassed out: the German market is back, the trees are lit (from the “Big Switch On”), the ferris wheel is up, the ice rink is drawing a crowd and it’s cold…so cold that the frost isn’t melting off the ground.
- The sun is setting before 4 pm now - oddly, it doesn’t bother me as much as last year.
- I can’t believe we go home to visit in about 3 weeks; I’m sad to leave and excited to go and don’t know really what to expect.
- I can’t believe all the stuff we need to accomplish in those 3 weeks!