We now are moving into our second week of Advent.  It is a season in which, we as Christians, continue to ready ourselves to celebrate Jesus’ birth and prepare and ponder His Second Coming.  These themes of the Advent Season cause me to ask another question.  Am I prepared for Jesus to come into my life right now?  

Perhaps God wants us not just to think about what He did and what He will do, but what He is doing this moment.  Frankly, if we spend too much time thinking about what was or what will be, we might not be paying enough attention to what the possibilities are right now.

Long ago, the prophet Isaiah wrote, in effect, “Lord God, we are the clay and you are the potter.”

While Isaiah’s words were to a people who lived and suffered a long time ago, in many ways, his words have a lot to do with us who live in a vastly different place and time.  Isaiah said, in essence, “Through it all, the good and the bad, live like a piece of clay and let God be the one who shapes you.”

I think this is great counsel for us this Advent season.   We don’t need to wait for His second coming for transformation, healing, or peace within our lives to begin.  Jesus wants to come into our lives, come into the changes we are going through, come into the center of our identities and ways of doing things, and have His way with us right this moment.    

Are we ready for Christ to come into our lives right now in ways that may change us at our core?  Are we ready for that kind of change?  Are we truly willing to expand what it is that we are building our lives upon?  

Are we willing to finally build our lives around Christ?  Not kind of.  Not partially.  Not sort of.  But completely.

So this Advent, over the next days and weeks, I invite you to do a few things.  

Have some straight talk with God.  Talk to God about your life and especially those places you resist changing the most.   Talk to God about those spots you are afraid to let go of.  Tell God how you feel.

Ask God to help you build your life around Him.  And it you already feel you have done that, ask Him again.  Ask God to help you build your life around Him, not stuff, places, relationships, ways of living or a whole litany of other possibilities.  Ask God to help you develop a relationship with God in which you are the clay and God is the potter.