Every year at Christmas we prepare our schedules, our homes, and our finances for the holiday season. We buy gifts, attend parties, bake cookies, and make family plans. Advent is our opportunity to prepare our heart, mind, and spirit for the coming of the newborn king, Jesus. Advent gives us space to pause and remember the promises God made through the prophets, and the fulfillment of God’s promise found in the manger.
The Bible is full of verses which urge us to remember what God has done by pausing our full and ever-busy lives to sit before him with grateful hearts. Our hope for you is that, instead of feeling busy and overwhelmed this Christmas, you would be filled with God’s promises and rejoice that He has fulfilled those promises in Jesus.
A Few Tips
- Select a time of day to do your devotion that works for you.
- Consider choosing one day each week to do one of the Advent and Christmas Activity Ideas found in the appendix, starting on page 54. Mark it on your calendar now (before things get too busy!).
- Read through the activities ahead of time to gather any supplies you will need. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box! You might even come up with your own ideas of how to live out the Advent weekly theme.