Advent 3

This day's Adventing was a bit complicated.  The passage itself was complicated, but my heart was complicated too.  We'd been at a holiday party the night before and it became a night that left me feeling Not Right this morning. I've had a hard time pinning down exactly what was Not Right about it all but at the end of it, I think I just felt... sinful.  Such a hard, not-used word in my life. But maybe accurate.

Mostly certainly there was no righteousness. Or at least very little of it. And as I read today's passage again tonight, it occurs to me that if there is no sin, no brokeness, then there's no need for Jesus. He wouldn't have had to show up if we were all getting it right, you know? And last night I didn't get it all right. And there was no fix for it, save confessing and repenting and leaning into Jesus with a contrite heart.  I would rather have been awesome last night, but I find myself gladdened to see that indeed all things do work for good and that even my mis-steps still step me closer to Jesus.

Today's passage is super long, so I'm only typing the first few verses but all of it was good, good, good. I am finding all this time in the Bible illuminating, maybe because I do it so rarely.  Regardless, it turns out that this little Bible of mine feels like home. Still.

Isaiah 11: 1 - 10

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him - the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord - and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. (1 - 3)