{"id":5072,"date":"2025-12-01T08:40:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T13:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5072"},"modified":"2025-12-01T08:40:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T13:40:26","slug":"ready-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/01\/ready-or-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Ready or Not"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u00a0Are you ready for Christmas? During the season of Advent \u2013 which annually begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and leads up to December 25 \u2013 followers of Jesus traditionally look for ways to prepare themselves for the coming of God\u2019s own Son into the world. Throughout December we\u2019ll ponder ways that we can ready ourselves to receive Jesus, once again, into our own hearts.<\/em>

Ready or Not<\/strong>

Ready or not, another Christmas is about to arrive.\u00a0

In just a few weeks, the world will celebrate God\u2019s radical choice to come to earth as a human being. Christmas is coming \u2013 whether or not you happen to be ready.

If it makes you feel any better, not that many people were ready for the first Christmas, either.\u00a0

King Herod certainly wasn\u2019t ready \u2013 not ready to give up his throne to some rival king. Jerusalem\u2019s Bible teachers weren\u2019t ready \u2013 not ready to abandon their theories concerning whom the Messiah would be and how he might make his grand entrance. Even ordinary people weren\u2019t ready for a baby, of all things \u2013 and a baby born out of wedlock to a peasant girl from Hicksville.

Years later, however, the apostle Paul put it rather poetically in Galatians 4:4: \u201cBut when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman\u2026\u201d

When did Jesus come into the world? He came right on God\u2019s schedule. He appeared when the time had fully come \u2013 whether we were ready or not.

The passing of the years reminds us that we are almost never ready for the next big moment in life. That\u2019s because God rarely chooses to let us know when such moments are about to happen. Ready or not, we all end up experiencing events that we did not schedule and traveling on roads that we did not choose.

Maybe right now you\u2019re on a road you never planned on taking.\u00a0

Maybe you happen to be in one of its roughest sections, or at a place where you have to admit that you\u2019re a little bit scared. Last year on Christmas you weren\u2019t thinking about cancer\u2026or losing your job\u2026or feeling desperately alone.

Ready or not, we all go down roads that we don\u2019t choose. What assurances do we have? Only this one \u2013 we never go down such roads alone.

That\u2019s because Jesus is Immanuel<\/em>, \u201cGod With Us.\u201d

Each weekday between now and Christmas, we\u2019ll pause and consider a different way to prepare ourselves for this season \u2013 to be ready to welcome the fullness of Christ into our hearts and lives. How can we be ready for Christmas intellectually? Physically? Relationally? Emotionally?

For children, it seems as if December can never get here fast enough. For those of us who are older, it seems incredible that another December is already here. \u00a0

The more we sense that the sand is racing through the hourglass, the more we yearn for real significance and lasting security. In the company of others we find ourselves wondering, \u201cDoes anybody think that I am a useful person? Does anybody really care? Do other people respect me, love me, or even notice me?\u201d These are kinds of questions that drive the makeup industry, the clothing industry, and the Botox industry.

God\u2019s response is a pair of miracles.

Christmas is the miracle of significance. God cares so much about your humanity that he decided to share it. Easter is the miracle of security. What we discover from the resurrection of Jesus is that something will indeed survive our own deaths: We will.<\/em>

That means that what we do now takes on a whole new meaning. There are no trivial moments. This moment counts forever. Nothing that really matters will ever be lost\u2026if we ourselves belong to God.\u00a0

Are you willing to bet your life on that? Are you willing to let go of the life you currently have \u2013 which you cannot keep \u2013 in order to receive from Jesus a life that you can never lose?\u00a0

Maybe for you this Christmas will turn out to be the fullness of time \u2013 the time to surrender your heart, your mind, your soul, and your strength to Jesus as never before.

David Peterson, who was pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Spokane, Washington, remembers a time that his little daughter came into his study while he was working feverishly. \u201cDaddy,\u201d she said, \u201ccan we play?\u201d He answered, \u201cI\u2019m awfully sorry, sweetheart, but I\u2019m right in the middle of finishing a sermon. How about in one hour? We can play then.\u201d

\u201cOK, Daddy,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd as soon as you\u2019re done, I\u2019m going to give you a great big hug.\u201d Peterson said, \u201cNow that will be wonderful.\u201d

His daughter walked away but got only as far as the door, at which point she did an abrupt U-turn, ran back towards him and squeezed him with all of her might. \u201cDaddy,\u201d she said, \u201cI just wanted you to know what you have to look forward to.\u201d

What are you looking forward to?\u00a0

Ready or not, Christmas is coming.

May this be an Advent in which you\u2019re able to be more ready than ever.
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here \u00a0Are you ready for Christmas? During the season of Advent \u2013 which annually begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and leads up to December 25 \u2013 followers of Jesus traditionally look for ways to prepare themselves for the coming of God\u2019s own Son into the world. Throughout December we\u2019ll ponder… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5073,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[365,1040],"class_list":["post-5072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-advent","tag-preparation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5074,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5072\/revisions\/5074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}