Luke 1:49 NLT

'For the Mighty One is holy, and he has done great things for me.'

The moment I open my eyes in the morning, it is difficult not to dwell on the challenges that lie ahead of me. The piece of training I don’t want to do! That awkward phone call I’ve been putting off. The pile of papers I simply must deal with but which I find so boring. This is because our brain is wired to negativity. This is a consequence of our human instinct for survival. We are naturally risk-averse, preferring safety ahead of danger.

Once a negative thought captures our brain, we experience the stress it generates as we react from our ‘fight or flight’ mode. This thought gets locked into our brain, stress stays with us, perhaps intensifies, before another negative thought enters and follows the same pattern. It’s not that we don’t experience positive thoughts, but these are passing moments since the brain fails to hold onto them. We instinctively forget the positive experiences in our life. We’re too busy processing the negative to retain the positive events. Perhaps there’s one significant negativity loop that plays consistently in your head and this is sufficient to dampen your mood and make life an uphill struggle.

Mary might have imagined the consequences of her unexpected pregnancy and consistently taken a negative view of her situation. Instead, she focused on the positive aspects of God and the promise God had made through Gabriel’s words. We too have to take time to make our brains aware of the positive situation we are in, given that God is on our side.

As you journey through Advent, perhaps start writing up a gratitude journal. This is simply a place to capture positive thoughts. A negative thought is like a drop of ink. Drop that on the page of your life, and it stains and obliterates things. But if you drop it into a bowl of water, it dissipates and has very little impact upon that water. Drop your negative thoughts into the bottomless bowl of God’s promises.

QUESTION: What strategies do you employ to combat negative thinking?

PRAYER: Lord God, you have indeed done great things for me. I thank and praise you.

Luke 1:48 NLT

'For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will call me blessed.'

It’s easy to feel invisible in everyday life. We disappear among thousands of people living a life like ours. We share similar patterns of work, commuting, leisure, shopping, and return home. We are one among a throng whose names we shall never know.

Mary lived long before mass media. A teenager with a life just beginning, on the verge of getting married and assuming life would unfold for her as it had for her mother and her grandmother before that. But suddenly Mary is projected to the forefront of history. An angelic visitation, a divine request and a split-second agreement ensured her life would forever remain in the spotlight, her anonymity stripped away as she is prepared to be called “blessed” by each subsequent generation.

You may feel your life is caught up on a treadmill that speeds up throughout this Advent season. Yet, like Mary, God has invited you to embrace and serve his purpose on the earth. Your anonymity disappeared the moment you said yes to God, for God knows you personally (Psalm 139). What’s more, God can distinguish you from among all his disciples (Luke 12:7). God has and is taking notice of you. So don’t think your life is simply passing you by. Take hold of it and seek to live it entirely dedicated to God.

We know of Mary’s role as the mother of Jesus, yet we discover little of the ways she encouraged and supported Jesus from his birth through his active years of ministry. It may well be you have a clear recollection of a time when God was with you in a special way. But God is still with you, even if your sense of his presence or the nature of your service appears less obvious than before. God is and will continue to take notice of you and remain committed to your emergence into the person you were always intended to be. This may include harsh realities as well as warm encouragement.

QUESTION: Do you find it hard to accept the truth that you are known and deeply loved by God?

PRAYER: Thank you, Jesus, that you came and took notice of me and gave me life and purpose.

Luke 1:46-47 NLT

'Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!'

The phrase “bursting with excitement” comes to mind as I read these words of Mary’s song. Following the promise of the angel Gabriel, she has travelled to visit her cousin Elizabeth, also with child, and their immediate encounter was one of those Holy Spirit moments that resonate throughout all of history. Consequently, Mary bursts into song, professing her joy in both God and the fact that she is the chosen mother of God’s Son, Jesus.

In a time when we are more used to cynicism and despair than celebratory rejoicing, it can be challenging to muster a song of praise. God is unchanging, even as our life’s circumstances are subject to regular and often extreme change. To magnify God is to allow me to move to see that God is larger than any circumstance in which I find myself. God becomes obscured to the degree that I allow my pressures and problems to expand to fill all my mental and emotional space. Now I am subject to my own moods and anxieties, with no space for God to appear.

Mary was facing a challenge. Unmarried, yet engaged. Now pregnant with a rather far-fetched account of how this has come about. Vulnerable, for if her fiancé deserted her, then of course she would be disowned by her own family as well, and face a very uncertain future. Yet, the confirmation of God’s work by God’s Spirit only loosens her tongue in praise and thanksgiving.

Worshipping God is always counterintuitive. When I travelled internationally many years ago in Christian ministry, I met and stayed with Christian communities who were physically at risk and usually living on the breadline. Yet their welcome was overwhelming, their hospitality generous and their worship authentic.

QUESTION: What benefits do you enjoy as a result of God’s love and acceptance?

PRAYER: Lord God, may you appear larger in my gaze and thoughts than anything else. I magnify your name.

Deuteronomy 8:2-3 NLT

'Remember how the Lord your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands...He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.'

One discipline that is good to practise is that of fasting. I am speaking of food here, but there are other fasts that you might like to practise, such as fasting regrets, escapism and consumerism. However, returning to food, it is good to fast food for both spiritual and health reasons.

When we fast we ‘embody spirituality’, a holistic practice that locates all of who we are in the real world. Fasting is our response to God’s love and grace. Fasting to achieve some outcome must be seen as simply an attempt to manipulate God. Fasting is not instrumental in securing God’s will on the earth. It is often at times when we feel distant from God and grieve the loss of God’s presence that we might fast. Acknowledging in our bodies as much as in our souls that we desire God, hunger pangs are simply a prompt to pray and acknowledge our love of God. Of course, God is with us throughout, for we cannot be separated from him (Romans 8:38). If God is absent, it is I who has moved, or focused my attention elsewhere.

I try to fast most Fridays as an expression of identifying with God. It creates a natural additional time to pray, the time I might most naturally eat. I’m not legalistic about this, and if Jayne is around or it’s the only time guests can visit, I relax my fast. My fast is a way in which I set aside something that is both good, and which I love, namely food, in preference to feasting on God. In a busy Advent season, try fasting one day a week taking 30 minutes at mealtimes to sit quietly with God and consider the approaching incarnation.

QUESTION: How do you practise fasting as a spiritual discipline in your life?

PRAYER: Lord, in a season where there is so much excess, increase my hunger for you.

2 Corinthians 9:7 NLT

You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure. “For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.”

Not a week since our version of Thanksgiving and we arrive at our next big celebration, St Nicholas’ Day. A third-century bishop in modern-day Turkey, Nicholas was both a miracle-worker and giver of secret gifts (Matthew 6:3). He was a defender of the Faith in a time of persecution, secretly delivered bags of money to provide dowries for a father’s daughters who would otherwise have been forced into prostitution, and raised three boys from the dead! Over time this saint of God has been both domesticated and commercialised to suit our materialistic age.

At the Oratory, before the Christmas season kicks in, we prepare another feast and tell the story of St Nicholas. We concentrate on his generosity, and together talk about what venture we will financially support this year. This is to ensure we do invest in the needs and opportunities of others as well as our planned investment in pleasing ourselves with gifts, food and festivities. It doesn’t matter what target we set, but we do set one, since we can estimate what we shall spend on Christmas. Each member of the family contributes to it.

It is a reminder of the generosity of God in sending Jesus to be born in a stable in Bethlehem. It acknowledges that we too can invest financially in the well-being of others, secretly and generously. Over that meal, we recall where and how we have invested in needs beyond our own over the year. We recall where we feel we have been tempted to avoid giving financially, often from fear of running out of money. Sums don’t matter and we can involve anyone of any age. Giving is from the heart.

One addition to this practice is collaborating on creating something we can hang from the Christmas tree that reflects the people or cause we choose to support, so that the recipients are represented and welcomed into our home through the Christmas season.

QUESTION: How can you practise generosity to others this Advent?

PRAYER: Lord, may your Church reflect your generous nature this Christmas season.