We are only two days away from Thanksgiving, a holiday that now simply seems to herald the arrival of Black Friday. In fact this year, the Big Box Retailers are getting a jump start on the competition with an opening volley of “door buster” deals starting at 8 PM Thanksgiving Day soon to be known as Black Thursday Night. By the time you factor in the two hour early arrival lot many of us will reduce Thanksgiving Day with our families to “Thanksgiving Afternoon.” How ironic is it that we will cut short a day intended to count our blessings in order to accumulate more stuff we certainly don’t need and really can’t afford?
I am challenging you this year to join me and my family in having a different kind of Christmas, one that abdicates the over spending, overeating and the materialism typically associated with the Advent Season and focusing on the life changing impact of God arriving on planet earth in the flesh as a baby.
To help those who accept this challenge, I will blog five short Advent Devotions on successive Monday mornings beginning Monday November 26. Advent does not begin until December 2 but I am afraid that the power of marketing and “Blockbuster” sales will have already sucked you in so we will start a week early. I will also pause Thanksgiving Night and again early “Black Friday” morning with your weekend prayer requests in hand. Dallas and I will be praying for you even as you strive to resist the temptations of our gluttonous world.
We love you and yearn for you to this year have a different kind of Christmas, a Christmas where you are able to enjoy Christmas traditions without consuming more than you can afford or need, a Christmas where you experience the reality of the “Word Became Flesh” and are so transformed that God will be able to use you to change the world, one person at a time with the incredible life changing love of Jesus.
“The Word became flesh and lived among us.” John 1:14
I am praying for you. Please pray for me.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Rick
