Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:08] Hi everyone. It's the weekday podcast with Chuck Allen and we're here in week four of Advent. Can you believe it? It's Christmas week.
[00:00:16] It just snuck up on us. It's like Advent. It just snuck up and there it was.
[00:00:22] This week four is the week of love.
[00:00:25] In this week love, all the candles have been lit and that makes all the sense in the world because hope, peace, joy, and now love.
[00:00:34] It's. It's complete. It is Jesus showing up, bringing all these things and literally being the definition of all these things.
[00:00:44] But it's not Hallmark card love. It's not like, like and subscribe love. It's not like, ooh, I love tacos kind of love. It's the love that moves toward us when we least deserve it. But we most need it. In John's Gospel, in chapter one, the message puts it this way. The Word was first the Word present to God.
[00:01:05] God present to the Word. The Word was God in readiness for God from day one.
[00:01:11] Everything was created through Him. Nothing, not one thing, came into being without Him. The lifelight was the real thing. The life light blazed out of the darkness. The darkness couldn't put it out.
[00:01:23] I love this part. The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. That's a great line. The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. Not the Word became an idea and stayed in a book. Not the Word became a doctrine and it was hidden in a classroom. The Word became flesh and blood and then did what true love always does. It moves closer. It moved toward us. It moved into our neighborhood, into our cul de sac, into. Into our apartment complex. It moved into our offices and into the school drop off line. It moved into the broken family system and into our anxiety.
[00:02:03] You do the math. Love that really is true moves into anything, including your December 25th week exhaustion.
[00:02:13] Advent isn't us trying to climb up to God. Advent is God descending, showing up, choosing to be with us, not above us. Not just above us. Well, over in First John 4, the message gives us another message. My beloved friends, let's continue to love each other. Since love comes from God. This is how God showed His love for us. God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
[00:02:43] This is the kind of love we're talking about. Not that we once upon a time loved God, but. But that he loves us.
[00:02:52] Did you see that? Not that we loved God. Not that we got our act together. Not that we cleaned up our language and our browser and our budget. And then God's Hey. Okay, now I'll show up. Advent is an announcement right in the middle of our mess. I'm moving into your neighborhood.
[00:03:08] So here's a question we might want to ask ourselves today.
[00:03:11] Where are we convincing ourselves that God keeps his distance from us?
[00:03:17] Maybe in that one relationship? Or maybe that addiction that we manage but we never beat. Maybe that chronic guilt that we carry from somebody that just nobody knows about.
[00:03:30] Maybe we should ask, where have we silently decided? God might love people in general, but he keeps a safe distance from this part of me.
[00:03:40] Advent is God breaking that lie.
[00:03:43] It's the crib in Bethlehem. God's wonderful way of saying, I'm not waiting for you on the other side of your improvement plan.
[00:03:52] I'm right here. I'm in the thick of it with you right now.
[00:03:56] The word moved into the neighborhood. No lease agreement. No background check. No here are my conditions. Just a baby in a horse trough in a backwater town. Born to teenage nobodies. If God's willing to show up there, what makes us think you won't show up here?
[00:04:13] So today?
[00:04:15] Maybe you're on a walk or at work or on a drive.
[00:04:19] Just practice this one simple practice.
[00:04:23] It's a love practice for week four.
[00:04:26] Three breaths, three lines.
[00:04:29] Try it on your inhale. Quietly pray.
[00:04:32] This is a love that move toward me on the exhale and I welcome you here on the inhale.
[00:04:42] This is a love that moved toward me on the exhale. I welcome you here.
[00:04:48] One more time.
[00:04:50] Love that move toward me and I welcome you here.
[00:04:55] Here.
[00:04:56] Maybe it's your cubicle. Maybe it's your truck.
[00:05:00] Maybe it's that tense conversation that's waiting for you.
[00:05:04] Maybe it's that grief that shows up this time of year like an uninvited guest.
[00:05:09] You don't have to fake it. You don't have to pretty it up. You just have to open it up.
[00:05:14] Because the God we meet in Advent, the God we see in Jesus, is not repelled by our realities. He's drawn to it.
[00:05:25] Thanks for joining me on this Monday of Christmas week here on the weekday podcast. And as you go, remember, you're more than loved right where you are. Before you change a thing, you're more than loved. And you're more loved than you know. God bless you. Have a great day. Bye now.
