If someone were to ask you, “What is your God like?”, what would you say? Would you say, “God is love” or “God is omnipotent”? Many of the stories of Advent give the answer, “God is the one who interrupts our lives.” Elizabeth and Zechariah, Joseph and Mary, the shepherds, the magi — God breaks into their lives and sends them in new, unexpected directions. The church practices Advent to train us to be ready to respond to God’s surprising creativity when it interrupts us.

What about you? Where is God surprising you? Where is God taking you down paths you never would have ventured on your own?

Is it in a prayer that you have been praying with all your might and you’re not getting an answer, or at least, not the answer you were looking for? Could it be that God is giving you an answer — it just an answer that is pointing you in a different direction?

Do you have plans that aren’t working out the way you had hoped? Perhaps God has different plans for you. God calls us to a life of purpose far beyond what we think we are capable.

Sometimes faith is a matter of trusting that God is creatively at work in the interruptions that disrupt our attempts to control and direct our own lives.

Lord Jesus Christ,
your story is full of surprises.
You come to save us in ways
that we do not expect.
By the power of your Holy Spirit,
keep us open to you unexpected gifts.
Speak truth and wonder
deep into our hearts,
that we may welcome
your birth in our lives.
Then, touched by your grace
and filled with your Spirit,
we will join with all those who kneel before you
in wonder, love and praise. amen.

If you missed an entry in our Advent devotions series, please click here to see all previously posted devotions.