Following the Star

Pause

The light keeps shining in the dark, and the darkness has never put it out.

John 1:5 (CEV)

Listen

Let heaven celebrate! Let the earth rejoice! Let the sea and everything in it roar! Let the countryside and everything in it celebrate! Then all the trees of the forest too will shout out joyfully before the Lord because he is coming! He is coming to establish justice on the earth! He will establish justice in the world rightly. He will establish justice among all people fairly.

Psalm 96:11-13

Think

The beach is one of my favorite places. There is something about seeing where the ocean meets the land and the power of the waves. On our beach trips, it wasn’t uncommon for us to go back out to the beach after a long day to enjoy the last glimmers of light from the sun before they faded away.

The Psalmist reminds us that we don’t always need to see God’s glory in creation, we can also hear it. If you’ve ever listened to the roar of the waves crashing on the beach, you know that the waves and their sounds are constant. They never stop. They roar from dawn to dusk to dawn again. The waves constantly impart their power on the land, shaping it ever so slightly with each thunderous crash.

And so it is with God: a never ceasing, never stopping presence breaking into our lives, imparting power and love through the Spirit, shaping our world and our lives. Whether we can see the waves crashing in the light or hear them thundering in the dark, we know that God is always there.

Kris “Bubba” Brammer

Pray

Awesome and powerful God, I don’t always recognize your presence in the world and in my life, but I know it is there. Help me to be mindful of the many ways you act, in the big and the small, in the quiet and the roars, in the darkness and the light. Amen.

Go

The Light has come.

The Light is within us.

Go and let the Light shine.