“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

Luke 1:38

My Tuesday started, as per usual, by taking a mile hike with Max around the neighborhood. You can see – above – how the early morning sun catches the church steeple and invites the world to place the new day into God’s hands.

This morning we headed down toward the river. It’s just a half mile and I was curious to see if all that rain from Sunday was having any impact. Good grief, yes! The Tar is spilling its banks, running up into the parking area through the launch ramp, and filling up the woods around the Riverfront Park.

Of course it’s not just the three and a half inches we had here locally, its all coming downstream from the torrential rains north and west of us too. Water in rivers is cumulative. Right now it’s 11 feet above Saturday’s level and should crest after rising another two feet by Thursday morning.

By 7:30 I was meeting with the guys at church for Tuesday Bible study. This is a most excellent group of men, and it is a real privilege to hang out with them and be a part of their journey.

Range Finder

They surprised me today with a thoughtful and generous Christmas gift. Apparently when I play golf it is obvious I need help with – among so many other things – judging distance. So they all pitched in for a very nice range finder.

“Will this tell me how far away I am from the Lord?” I asked. “The dial doesn’t go that high!” someone said.

Curiously, this pretty much matched my topic for the morning. We had a conversation about how God gets our attention. The conclusion was fairly straightforward. It’s about us putting ourselves consistently in close proximity to God so we can be ready to hear God’s voice.

We also talked about the major players in the Christmas story, and how was it that God chose to work with them?

Essentially, they already had their eyes open and their ears attuned – they were paying attention… other than Zechariah, of course, who – even though he was in the temple and inside the Holy of Holies – had trouble accepting the messenger and the message.

All the men around the table this morning expressed admiration for Joseph and his quiet strength in accepting God’s plan and raising Jesus. But in the final analysis it was Monty who summed things up nicely when he pointed to Mary. “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered when she got the startling news from the angel Gabriel. “May your word to me be fulfilled.”

Like the river Tar, still absorbing run-off from towns and fields and counties upstream from us, we are all filling up with God’s light and goodness and love and instruction. Together – and like the river this is cumulative – we are being saturated till we flood this community not with water but with the transformational Good News Jesus has for all humankind.

Jesus – both the child in the hay and the grown man who poured himself into his disciples – is God’s invitation home.

This is the week leading up to Christmas; it is also a great time to come home – DEREK