The Second Day of Advent, 2016

Monday, November 28, 2016
by Patience Nave

I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.  Isaiah 42:6

About four hundred years before the birth of Jesus, God spoke these words to Isaiah. Amazing! This is the Scripture that Jesus used to respond to John the Baptist when John sent someone to Jesus to ask Him if He were really the Messiah. John must have wanted to shout for joy when he heard that! The Jews had waited for years and now He was here!

Two thousand years later, the words still thrill our hearts! God had a plan for light coming to even Gentiles! That’s us! That’s me! Fortunately, I can see physically, and I thank God for that. But all too often I am blind spiritually! I need Him to open my spiritual eyes so I won’t miss a thing that He is trying to show me. I am very slow to recognize spiritual blessings, so I’m glad to be reminded, as I prepare for Christmas, that Jesus came to open eyes that are blind – especially spiritually blind!

Father, sometimes I am like the blind person who has never had sight. He learns to live with blindness and never knows what he has been missing. I don’t want to be spiritually blind! I want to see the wonderful truths that you want to make clear but that I often miss. Open my eyes, Father, that I may really see.

And Then It Was Christmas! A Journey Toward Christmas
prepared for Homosassa United Methodist Church, 2006,
by Patience Nave, Christian Education Coordinator.