Preparing the Way (Cooperating with God 3)

Published by christi on December 9, 2021December 9, 2021

It’s been a challenging couple of months, and irritability has become a noticeable trait in me, enough that my easy-going husband pointed it out. He probed a bit about what might need to be done to deal with it, not so much looking to fix the symptoms, but seeking what might be the cause.

Human emotions are always the product of what the human believes. The belief can be something that is historically verifiable, or something that is an interpretation (accurate or mistaken) of the event, and a change in one’s thinking effects a change in one’s emotions. For instance, seeing something long and crooked lying across the bike trail when you know you are in snake territory produces fear. Finding out it was only a stick produces relief!

Trying to talk myself or anyone else out of what she is feeling devalues the person. (The Hub  trying to talk me out of what I am feeling is a bad plan!) However, when I recognize that what I am feeling is not in line with reality, my choice to change my thinking to align with the truth will produce a different set of feelings.*

This change of thinking is what the Bible writers call repentance.

This is Advent:  repentance is the focus.

Every choir performing parts of Handel’s Messiah his Christmas season will be singing the libretto from this passage:

And [John the Baptizer] went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
(Luke 3:3-6)

 Dozens of times I have read these words, but until today, I did not really get that Isaiah gives us a word picture of John’s repentance message!

Being willing to change my distorted thinking puts me in a position to be rescued from it!  The low places in my thinking  (I am too bad to be forgiven! I am unlovable!) need to be raised up, the mountains (I have to do this myself. I have to be worthy of forgiveness.) leveled, the twisted places (I was abandoned and I will always be alone.) straightened, and the rough places (I can’t count on anybody.) made smooth to be ready for Jesus to bring His rescue to my heart and mind.

O Spirit of Truth, I am willing. I don’t like being irritable. Show me what kind of change is needed as I am waiting and…

Following Jesus every day in the everyday.

Christi

*Lifelong thinking patterns require Supernatural intervention.