Keep watch!
Thoughts for Advent – could be morphed into a Children’s Message
We used to wear watches. Now we wear devices. Still strapped to the wrist. Still sometimes called watches. Still showing us the time. But mostly we check them for everything but the time – our heart rate, driving directions to Fred’s, how many steps we’ve taken in a day, that there’s a chance of rain.
Which can be hazardous if we get absorbed in all that information and smack into a pole. (There’s a reason the Advent scriptures tell us to lift up our heads.) But which can also be useful because for people of faith, telling time always involves more than a swift glace at digits on a screen. To know it’s half past three is simple. But to know the hour of judgement and grace is complex. It requires additional effort.
To know that crucial hour and not miss it, you need to check your heart. Is it even beating? Racing in hope or sluggish in fear? You have to find directions. Which way now? Lost or found? And scan for gathering clouds. What kind of storm is coming? Will it rain down justice or sweep away the poor? And count your steps, to see how far you’ve come by faith.
For Advent’s hour is not where the hands on the dial are pointing. It’s where the signs of the times are pointing – pointing at me and you.
Jesus says, ‘Watch!’ So check yours often this season. (With your heads up, please.) And may these devotions help you to tell time truly: to feel your pulse, find the way, scan the skies and count your steps on the way to God, who is even now finding a way to you, in flesh and blood and time.
Mary graciously approved the inclusion of this devotion on Worship Words. She writes for the Still Speaking Writers’ Group, and is regularly published by the United Church of Christ USA. Read more of Mary Luti’s devotions here.
