Life is a gift!
by Nick Kohlmann
When I first moved to Charleston, SC to serve as a youth minister, I lived in the 450 sqft. apartment above the church offices. It was my first job after college graduation, and my first time truly living alone. I recall looking around the small, dim apartment and questioning if I had made the right decision, or if perhaps I had misinterpreted God’s call to serve this church five hours away from everyone I loved and knew. Then I unpacked a little box my mother had put together for me and found a little painted plank of wood adorned with a mountain scene that read at the top, "How cool is it that the same God who created the mountains, oceans, and galaxies thought the world needed one of you, too" and suddenly home didn’t feel quite so far away.
As I read the psalm appointed for today, I am drawn into the vastness of our God. It is only more recently that I have come to contemplate more fully the infinite nature of God and the woefully finite nature of myself. Consider the depth and breadth of what this psalm proclaims about our Lord. It is our God who controls the roaring oceans and draws all people upon the earth into divine love. It is our God, who brings forth increase across all the land and gently tends to creation as a mother does to her young child. It is our God who offers forgiveness when we come to the end of our finiteness and require what only the infinite can provide.
What’s more, all of this is freely given, all of this is a gift! Our modern world leaves little room for the slowness that Advent beckons us into. There are things to buy, parties to plan, and meals to cook. All these things are indeed good but let us not rush past the awe and wonder of Advent and miss the gift that this season offers. We are marching toward the birth of a savior who knows what it is like to sit in the depths of human joys and sorrows. This is the God who met a very unsure twenty-one-year-old in a dim Charleston apartment and reminded him, “I know you, for I have made you. And I have prepared a way for you.” This is the God of the Psalms who works wonders greater than what we can hold in our finite minds. This is the God inviting you into a holy Advent.
