Tag: Christmas in July

Come Thou Long Expected Jesus: Where Freedom is Found

What keeps you up at night?  

Sometimes it’s too much caffeine for me. Sometimes it’s the anticipation of the next day. 

But most of the time it’s because I’m feeling fearful or anxious about something. I rack my brain, trying to figure things out or trying to make sense of crazy circumstances. 

And instead of finding solutions, I just lose sleep. 

Dr. Dan Allender puts it this way in Hope When You Are Hurting, “But life is disturbing, and we struggle with what God is up to.“ 

Can I get an Amen on that?

How many times have you thought those very words, how many times have I said them? “God, what are you doing?” As hard as we try, there are times when we cannot figure out what God is up to. 

Life is hard to figure out.  

We live within layers of life, where things are happening simultaneously around us, to us, and by us, while we try to make sense of it all. When we try to figure it all out, we default to a formula where our life experiences shape our definition of who God is and whether He loves us. 

Good things happening = God is good and happy with us.

Bad things happening =  God is bad, weak, or mad at us. 

This formula looks simple and easy to follow. But life cannot be lived through a formula. Life is complex and complicated, a mix of joy and sorrow at any given moment. 

Instead of a formula, we must live by truth. This truth is a great place to start: We were not made to live in fear. The opposite of fear is trust. 

Jesus came to set us free from the fears that keep us up at night. From the sin patterns that keep us feeling distant from God, We can find our rest in Him. 

“He restores my soul.” (Psalm 23:3) 

The word for restores that is used here means to turn away. The Lord turns our soul away. Not away from Him, but away from the things that harm our soul. He turns our soul back toward Him, where it is protected and safe. 

God is constant and unchanging, while life around us swirls in chaos. 

Instead of letting our life experiences shape our definition of who God is and whether He loves us, what would it look like if we let who God is and His love for us shape our definition of our life experiences? This idea is more than playing around with words. The difference between these two is the difference between hope and despair. I’ve experienced it in my own life. 

The more we know Him, the more we know His tender love for us, the more we can trust His hand in our lives, even when we don’t understand what He is doing.

This life begins the process of being set free, of being released from our sins and fears, and of finding our rest in God. The process will be complete the moment we step into His presence, face to face at last. 

If you enjoyed this post, I know you will enjoy the devotions in my new book, In Unexpected Ways: Christmas in Everyday Life. Available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback. This is an affiliate link.

This post is also available in video form on my YouTube Channel.

Joy to the World: The Plot Twist That Changed Everything

Aren’t the best stories the ones between good and evil, especially the ones where the fate of the world is on the line?  

As I type these words, the Avengers movies come to mind.  

Over the past few years, we’ve followed the adventures of the Avengers.  As their saving the world storyline unfolded over 20 something movies, we also experienced the backstories of each Avenger. We got to know them and see the parts of their stories that revealed why they fought against evil.  

And by the end of the last movie, The End Game, it became clear which Avenger would be the one to save the world.  

I was not happy with the writers at the end of that movie. I didn’t want any of the good guys to die. I am a huge proponent of happily ever after.

But as I’ve rewatched the movies with the end in mind, I’ve spotted the clues, the trail of bread crumbs the writers sprinkled in one movie after another that revealed why the overall story had to end that way.  

Are you ready for this?  

It reminds me of the Christmas story, which is part of the ultimate battle between good and evil.  

And in this storyline, Christmas was a definite plot twist.  

It might seem foolish for God to step into history in the form of a newborn baby, the most vulnerable of all creatures, to go toe-to-toe with His enemy. 

After all, the fate of the world, the fate of humanity, was at stake. 

And yet, the clues are there, sprinkled like a trail of bread crumbs throughout the Old Testament. 

The Christmas story is part of a larger story, a story that began before God said, “Let there be light.” A story that includes the Garden of Eden, the cross and resurrection. A story that is still unfolding. 

The backdrop of the manger scene is the Garden of Eden. That is where our need for a Savior began. 

God created this beautiful world and created man and woman in His image.  As part of His image, He wove into our DNA a need for relationship, connection, belonging. 

Satan did not bring an army in and confront God head-on. Instead, he slithered in and convinced Eve that the face-to-face relationship she had with God wasn’t enough. His words cast a shadow in her mind about the goodness, love, and intention of God. 

Oh, how he must have celebrated as she and Adam bit into that fruit. The precious souls God created and loved had rejected Him. With that bite the beautiful world God spoke into being became enemy territory.* 

And for a while it looked as though the enemy had won.  

Then, at just the right time, God stepped into history.  

It was the beginning of the fulfillment of his promise back in Genesis 3. It was the beginning of things being set right. The tiniest beginning of God bringing His world back to the way things are supposed to be. 

The tiniest beginning that changed everything.

When we look at the first Christmas with the end in mind, we can clearly see why the Gospel is good news. Jesus came to be with us, to show us what God is like, and to do what was necessary to restore the broken relationship between God and man.    

And the only response to that is JOY. 

Download this free printable of Joy to the World by clicking here.

*Excerpt from In Unexpected Ways: Christmas in Everyday Life by Erin Ulerich

If you enjoyed this post, I know you will enjoy the devotions in my new book, In Unexpected Ways: Christmas in Everyday Life. Available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback. This is an affiliate link.

This post is also available in video form on my YouTube Channel.