Ocean Beach Community Church: A Church of the Nazarene

The Upper Room Daily Devotional

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Christmas Longings

Suggested Bible Reading:

Read Hebrews 11:8-16

8 It was by faith that Abraham obeyed the call to set out for a country that was the inheritance given to him and his descendants, and that he set out without knowing where he was going.

9 By faith he sojourned in the Promised Land as though it were not his, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.

10 He looked forward to the well-founded city, designed and built by God.

11 It was equally by faith that Sarah, in spite of being past the age, was made able to conceive, because she believed that he who had made the promise was faithful to it.

12 Because of this, there came from one man, and one who already had the mark of death on him, descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and the grains of sand on the seashore which cannot be counted.

13 All these died in faith, before receiving any of the things that had been promised, but they saw them in the far distance and welcomed them, recognising that they were only strangers and nomads on earth.

14 People who use such terms about themselves make it quite plain that they are in search of a homeland.

15 If they had meant the country they came from, they would have had the opportunity to return to it;

16 but in fact they were longing for a better homeland, their heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, since he has founded the city for them.(New Jerusalem Bible)

They were longing for a better country — a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.(Hebrews 11:16 (NIV))

Today's Devotional

Christmas traditions differ all over the world. In Australia where I spent my childhood, we lazed in front of electric fans while singing songs about snow and sleds. Many Australians would love to experience a white Christmas. When I grew up, I became a missionary in northern Japan. I could experience at last the Christmas scenes I’d imagined as a child. However, celebrating Christmas in the snow was not as I’d pictured; I longed for the warm-weather Christmases of my childhood, complete with extended family.

We see the longing for home in Bible characters who felt like “strangers and foreigners on the earth” (Heb. 11:13, nrsv). My longing for home prompted me to think of the sacrifice Jesus made when he came to earth. How he must have yearned for all he left behind!

Whenever I’m away from my earthly home of Australia, I try to turn my homesickness into a longing for my eternal home where finally I’ll be satisfied. When I reach my eternal home everything will be perfect, and I will no longer feel homesick. by Wendy Marshall (Tokyo, Japan)

Thought for the Day: The longing for a home is a foretaste of heaven.

Prayer: Dear Lord, help us to anticipate the wonderful home you’re preparing for our eternity. Amen.

Prayer Focus: Missionaries

The scripture quotation, unless otherwise indicated, is from the NEW REVISED STANDARD VERSION of the Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Copyright ©2012 by The Upper Room, a ministry of GBOD. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce or redistribute without written permission from the publisher.

Daily Meditation: Wisdom -- January 28, 2012

Center for Action and Contemplation

WISDOM

“And I chose to have Wisdom rather than the light, because the splendor of her never yields to sleep.”(Wisdom 7:10)

The beauty of the unconscious is that it knows a great deal—whether personal or collective—but it always knows that it does not know, cannot say, and dare not try to prove or assert too strongly; because what it does know is that there is always more—and all words will fall short. The contemplative is precisely the person who agrees to live in that unique kind of brightness (a combination of light and dark that is brighter still!). The Paradox, of course, is that it does not feel like brightness at all, but what John of the Cross calls a “luminous darkness,” or others call “learned ignorance.”

In summary, you cannot grow in the great art form, the integration of action and contemplation, without 1) a strong tolerance for ambiguity; 2) an ability to allow, forgive, and contain a certain degree of anxiety; and 3) a willingness to not know and not even need to know. This is how you allow and encounter mystery. All else is mere religion. From A Lever And a Place to Stand:

The Contemplative Stance, the Active Prayer, p. x (foreword)

Starter Prayer:

Grant me wisdom. by Father Richard Rohr