What Are We Looking For?

Tuesday: 4 December, 2102 –– First Week in Advent

Isaiah 11:1–10 / Luke 10:21–24

What Are We Looking For?

What are we looking for?  This question is at the heart of what it means to have faith. It is also a good focus for reading the Bible.

So often we have our own agendas. We can do religious things with a self-obsessed attitude:  this better be good.... what’s in it for me.... I thought faith would make life easier....

If we read the Bible selectively we can have frustrating expectations. Isaiah gives some incredible projections in his prophecy. He tells of a time of justice and peace that seems impossible, almost unimaginable according to the world in which we live. Every year as we prepare for Christmas we revisit the familiar refrain: peace on earth, good will to men....

Christian Faith means living in the awareness that God is at work.... in  his own way.  Some people cannot –– or will not –– see it. We have to be open to God being God on his terms, not ours. When we are able to see that our deepest longings –– what we’re really looking for –– has been provided in Jesus Christ, we find that peace follows.

What we also find is that seeing the truth in Jesus is out of step with what so many people in the world are looking for.

If you find that your focus is more and more on Jesus.... that you are learning to trust him and obey him and love him more and more.... that you are being changed (that’s what it means to be converted).... then know that you have been given a very great gift:  Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.