Claude King's blog

What should we be doing during Advent? The best place to start is by understanding what Advent means. I want to give you an excerpt from an article that I read in Christianity Today on that subject:

"God of hope, I look to you with an open heart and yearning spirit.
During this Advent season, I will keep alert and awake,
listening for your word and keeping to your precepts.
My hope is in you." ~ Matthew Kelly

What would you say that you center your hope in as we enter the season we call Advent? What is Advent and why should we talk about hope during Advent? Isn't Advent an old word that people do not use much anymore outside of the church? We send out annual invitations for people to come to our worship services during Advent because it means something important to us.

We express our love for God both in how we live out our spirituality, which is conveyed through our hearts and minds and is transformative, and in what we do for others, as the need arises, for the sake of those who are without hope, hurting, and broken. God's love is shown in its fullest sense through our spirits, minds, and active service.

How do you see yourself as a believer in God in relationship to other people, no matter if they are believers in God or not? How has your relationship with God changed the way you interact with people, regardless of if they are believers in God or not? If you find yourself having any difficulties figuring that question out, try thinking about ways that you express your relationship with God outwardly rather than privately.

It is often hard to hear the revealed word that God wants us to know without being distracted by our own desires to advance ourselves and our position that either subconsciously or consciously counteracts the truth that we have heard from God because that truth is too difficult to fully understand as it relates to our lives.

I know people who bring a Godly presence with them wherever they go. The presence I am thinking about is the understanding that those people have invited God with them in as many places as they want God to walk with them into.

How do we help to heal the people and the land that we live in today? We need healing not just because we have been living through a pandemic but also because we needed healing long before the pandemic began. We needed healing, in large part, because of the increasingly isolated society that we have adopted that is based on an independent and self-reliant culture that has been forged since our country gained its independence from England.

What mindset and state of heart do we need to get us through a period of hardship, bleakness, or poor health? at one time or another, one or more of those negative things will visit us during our lifetime.

The last year and a half, unfortunately, was another opportunity to show how we handled an intense level of adversity, loneliness, and sickness. Thankfully we pushed through it to be where we are today! I am grateful to see the way that we have navigated the valleys and the peaks of the pandemic to this point.

I try to be as even-handed and balanced as I possibly can as a habit. I believe doing that can do much to provide for a stable environment in my life overall. And I also found out, it is the best way to relate positively to my family, friends, and those that I live around, work with, and serve in ministry. I think being balanced and evenhanded is seen by most as a good way to create and strengthen ties with the people one is close to, though many would agree that it is not always an easy thing to do consistently throughout our lives.

Can you remember a time when you had a disagreement with members of your family about how to best help someone or some group who needed assistance? It might have been another family member who was going through a difficult time or a group of people that have been suffering due to circumstances beyond their control.