God wants to talk to you

Hi. Welcome back to my blog. For the first time in ten years, I stopped writing my blog this past July. I'd like to say that my extreme health issues forced me to stop writing, but that's not true. The truth is that I gave up on many things around that time, my health being part of the reason, along with my finances and several other factors. But many years ago God called me to write and He's calling me to write again. My life is still extremely difficult due to my health and enormous medical bills, and my relationship with God suffered during that time too, which I'm trying to heal. I'm struggling to avoid severe depression. I would appreciate your prayers very much.

And God calling us in the midst of our pain and difficulty is what our reading is about today. The reading is from Matthew 1:1-2:12. God sends an angel to give Mary the greatest and maybe scariest news of all time: God would become a man and save us all from sin and death. This is great because through Mary's obedience we can all be saved. It's scary because Mary's life would become very strange and hard to explain very quickly. How could she get her fiance to understand the virgin birth? How would her relatives relate to her perfect son? Scary stuff. Then Joseph got a message from God, too, but his was an angel in a dream. Then the shepherds got a message from God but they got their message in a dream too, and no angel was mentioned.

As I've mentioned in years past, God is not a tame lion (as Lewis tells us in the Narnian chronicles). He rarely does things the way we expect Him to. 

But He wants to talk to you today. He's got messages of wisdom and love for you. These messages will be great news and often scary. They will turn your life upside down. You will have to trust Him completely. But if you follow Him and listen to His messages, He'll bring you to an abundant life you've never even dreamed of. (See John 10:10 for a little more on that). You'll find His messages, among other places, in the words of the Bible. I'll be writing a blog on the daily reading each day and you're welcome to follow along. This year I'll be writing on the New Testament readings. 

God, thank You for your messages. Help us, like Mary, to say yes.