I think that the first question for this week, “Am I proud?” touches on most of the other questions for this week, but I challenge you to really look at each question carefully. Look at your character, at your actions and through these questions, and the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit, be shaped into a powerful woman or man of God.

The Christian Spiritual Life is our relationship with, our experience of, and our being shaped by God into the human beings God intends us to be. And you can become that human being today.

Jesus is Emmanuel, which means, God with us. God’s with us, he’s got some very high expectations, but he never abandons us when we fail, when we fall. Maybe this Christmas it’s time to really embrace it all.

We all take journeys that we don’t want to take. It’s not because God wishes them upon us, they’re not a punishment or somehow meant to teach us something. But in the midst of those journeys we learn something. We see God’s hand guiding and leading us. We recognize that God is able to force and bend the fear, the suffering, the pain, the darkness and uncertainty of those journeys to accomplish good and beautiful things.

We’re called to be people who are gracious and merciful. People who wish good and not evil, even upon those who have hurt us. The Holy Spirit that was moving in the life of Mary long ago, the same Holy Spirit that was moving in Joseph to be forgiving in face of his heartbreak, and that same Holy Spirit is working in and around all of us today.

What did matter was all that God was preparing to accomplish through this child, and Joseph’s part in making that happen. Joseph had to humble himself.

Do you think that made impact on Jesus? Do you think it affected him to live every day with a man who had accepted and embraced that it’s not about him, and it’s about something greater?

It’s also important to be intentional about your stewardship—what you do with what you’ve got and what you make. It’s that regular, systematic giving that’s not emotional, or glamorous, or flashy. But it provides environments that keep marriages strong, and kids learning and growing. That regular giving that creates environments that prevent divorce, and bankruptcy, and child abuse.

Consuming, lacking, being afraid. If that’s where you are start a different cycle, the cycle of abundance. It makes no sense in the natural. It’s supernatural. It’s irrational. We give, God multiplies, our faith grows, and we give more. When we give, God creates in us a harvest of generosity, and when we give, people thank God.