The Seventeenth Day of Advent

 Tuesday, December 17, 2019

The Wonder of What God Has Done Through His Son:

An Advent Devotional Guide

The steadfast of mind thou wilt keep in perfect peace because he trusts in thee.

Isaiah 26:3

Many years ago, when I was in my late twenties, I had a very serious illness that caused a dangerous endocrine imbalance in my body. I was sick for about two years, and at times I really didn’t want to live. I hated being nervous all the time, being short tempered with my children and husband, living in what I know now was clinical depression. There was no peace in me – ever. During that time, I found this verse, and I tried so hard to appropriate it to my life, but it was a long time before I realized I was going about it all wrong.

I focused constantly on the peace promised, but the peace did not come. I failed to recognize that I should have been focusing on the God of that peace. Amazingly, when I really heard God (remember how many times Jesus said, “if you have ears to hear, hear”?), miraculously the peace came along with an immediate release from the depression! I was so dramatically changed that my husband and children noticed, my friends began to comment about it! I had learned / was learning to trust God! The King James Version of this verse is the one that I memorized and I will always love its rendition: “Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.” Staying one’s mind on God is not an easy thing to do, but oh, how marvelous and long-lasting are the consequences of learning to do it!

I would not take anything for having gone through those years, for it was there that I learned probably the most important lesson of my life. God is. God loves even me.

Father, Thank you for anything you must take us through to bring us to you. Amen

The Wonder of What God Has Done Through His Son:

An Advent Devotional Guide
prepared for First United Methodist Church of Homosassa, Florida
Winter 2009
by Patience Nave, Christian Education Coordinator