We Need a Hero!

Where was the world before the arriving? It is the week before Advent begins, and I was intrigued by the thought…what was going on in the world back then before the arriving of the Christ Child? It would seem it was then, much like it is today. People with a belief and thankfulness for God, yet seemingly no time for God is an apparent similarity of large proportions. The Israelite people have been through many difficult times, in which the Lord has continually delivered them from, yet as time settles, comfort is regained; complacency with God Himself seems to be the theme. Yet as difficulties and oppression continue to arise and reveal its ugliness, the ugliness of the separation from God becomes reality again. The people cry out for a Hero. When is this life of oppression going to end? Likewise in our lives today, when things are sailing along smoothly and all is well we tend to hold some kind of subconscious thought process that we no longer need God. Perhaps for some it is an act of not wanting to “bother” God, yet for many it is an all too familiar sense of “I can do this on my own”. Suddenly our smooth sailing becomes tornadic and once again, we like the people of the Old Testament cry out for a Hero. I see so often people with no time for God. The priorities of their life seemingly do not include God. Decisions made and being made do not reflect Emmanuel. Enter the turmoil of life once again as God is seemingly a hindsight and now the God we are to serve and build a relationship becomes the one we blame and cry out to for deliverance. Once again God gives us a break only to see us once again drift our own way and the cycle continues. Our dependency on self once we are granted a filling of grace by the Lord is much like leakage. Similarly to a defective battery, once charged it is reliable for some time on its own, but soon do to some imperfection within it begins to leak. Within time the battery is no longer functional as a working entity and must be charged again or thrown away. In our lives with God we get self-reliant after receiving grace only becoming of God. In that self-reliant stage we begin to be leaky assailants of what God really wants from us. We make every excuse available why we haven’t the time for God. Many of our excuses are rooted in anger, some in denial, and some simply out of sheer disobedience. It has always amazed me how we seemingly will deny God in virtually any occasion for a shopping trip, a sporting event, a bad hair day, or simply the “I just don’t feel like going” day. The leakage of God from our life becomes so severe that we open ourselves up to “the junkyard”. Like a battery that is no longer of any use, we too once we have leaked out all that which God has planted within us, and become vulnerable to the “junk” of the world. Once again because of an imperfection within, “the junk” of life infiltrates us, compresses us, squeezes us, and often in times has us headed for the scrap heap, until finally we cry out to the one we have forgotten, we need a Hero! Good news is here! The Hero has arrived, and this advent season perhaps we can make it a mission of ours to do what the Word says in the first chapter of John. As John announces the arriving illustrated in Malachi 3:1-3, may we be ready for His arriving into our own lives; because it is more than just believing, but about accepting the Hero as well. In the time of Jesus ascension in Acts 1, two white-robed men announce that Jesus will return – arrive – back to us one day just as He departed us. In somewhat of a physical yet transfigured sense, He will return for us in the clouds – arriving – to take us to the place He has prepared for us. That is, those of us who had time for Him and accepted Him ready and waiting. Is He your Hero? How is your battery? Blessings to you this Advent Season.