1-1-16 - Follow Your Star

I had not intended to take this week off from Water Daily, but as each day passed, I found myself unable to think of anything to say about such a familiar passage of Scripture.*

So here it is, the last day of the week – and year. I will offer just a few thoughts for the morrow, when the wheels of time will have spun us into a new year. I want to invite us to borrow the attitude of those magi who traveled so far to see this King their stars seemed to indicate had been born.

When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Like the magi, we’ve heard of Jesus. We’ve even met him. But we don’t begin to know him. So let’s follow whatever stars we discern can lead us to a deeper acquaintance, even intimacy, with Him.

And when we arrive at those moments of connection and knowing, let’s allow ourselves to be overwhelmed with joy.

And let’s frequently enter the house where we know him to be, and offer our devotion, kneeling because that’s what you do when you’re overcome with gratitude and awe.

And let’s open our hearts and wallets, giving fully of ourselves to this One who’s given everything for us.

And when we return to our ordinary lives – for these moments of grace-filled connection don’t last forever; our lives are like the string that connects these pearls into a beautiful strand – let’s go back by another route. Not because we are afraid of going back, but because God is always leading us forward into new gifts, new blessings, new landscapes and vistas, new uses for our gifts, and new companions on the way. Where will the road lead you this year?

Wishing you every blessing as the New Year unwraps its gifts!

* I was also at my mother’s home from Christmas Day onward, engaged in a frenzy of sorting a lifetime’s accumulated belongings as she prepares to downsize into an apartment in a few weeks… that took whatever creative energy I had left after Advent and Christmas services!