Advent Daily: Standing Still in Hope, Peace, Joy and Love

By Naomi Beale

The Christmas season is full of preparations. You pull out the decorations, mail cards, plan gatherings, shop, attend programs and performances—all to celebrate the day Christ was born. But amidst all the readying and activities, are you taking time to prepare your heart? Perhaps the checklists and busyness of all of our traditional preparations distracts us from the significance of Advent and Christmas itself. All of these distractions may even cause us to miss some of the blessings we are truly meant to receive during this season of celebration and joy.

Through thoughtful reflection, author Naomi Beale invites us each to purposefully experience Advent daily. Standing still intentionally in anticipation of Christmas Day magnifies the HOPE, PEACE, JOY and LOVE to be found in this season. These meditations with focused scripture will enhance the celebration of Christmas, encourage daily awareness of these gifts, and point to being in the Advent of the eternal light and love to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Sep 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9798385006984

Naomi Beale

Naomi Beale is a wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, sister, friend, co-worker, teacher, mentor, volunteer, speech language pathologist, writer—beloved child of God. In the midst of interruptions, commotion, the urgency of schedules, the unexpected, anxiety, grief, and the ever-growing background noise of the world, she’s discovered the value of standing still. Through her writing she focuses on words and phrases that grab the attention of her thoughts and heart, connects them with what God speaks in The Word, and encourages her readers to breathe, trust, and abide as they find spiritual renewal and restoration with her.

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Copyright © 2023 Naomi Beale.

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This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

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and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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All Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

ISBN: 979-8-3850-0696-0 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-0697-7 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-0698-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023917227

WestBow Press rev. date: 09/21/2023

Contents

Advent

Hope

Peace

Joy

Love

Christmas

For Galen and Jeannette who embraced Advent and nurtured our faith. For Terry who walks in love daily with me and encourages me in the midst to breathe, trust, and abide. And for Ellen, a dear friend and mentor, who encouraged me to share my written words—you are missed.

Advent

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Advent. The beginning or arrival of something anticipated. On the verge of something. Waiting in expectation. Moments leading up to an event.

I find this word encompasses the Christmas season so appropriately. In our home, the day after Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the most wonderful time of the year. We enjoy the Christmas season and find pleasure in decorating, in having certain foods and snacks, in listening to music, and in living throughout the month in the ambiance of the season. While we are steeped in our traditions and preparations for faith and family celebration, our focus and anticipation are very much on the reason for the season—that babe born in a small village in a stable and placed in a manger. During the Christmas season, family tradition has always included the weekly acknowledgment of Advent’s themes. This past year I yielded to a Spirit led journey to mindfully practice Advent daily, enabling my heart and soul to hear the Spirit’s voice calling in the wilderness of yearly routines and earthly materialistic commercialism, Prepare the way of the Lord! In doing so, I have found it is not solely the anticipation of the Savior’s arrival in the manger I nurture during Advent. Purposefully setting aside time to contemplate Advent creates daily awareness of the Spirit’s dwelling in me and focuses my heart on the expectation of Christ’s triumphant return. Advent calls my mind and my heart to reflect on the hope, peace, joy, and love given in the manger for Christmas, to daily reflect on the presence of each in my life, and to reflect on that which will be everlasting and eternal upon Christ’s return.

May the time you spend here be a blessing for you. May you find that these moments provide daily renewal in this Advent season. May you meditate on the Father’s promises and faithfulness through the verses from His Word. May anticipation of Christmas this season grow and excite you. May you develop a new daily awareness of His hope, peace, joy, and love—which are immeasurably more than the hope, peace, joy, and love one experiences on the earthly, human level. And may you joyfully and assuredly know you are in the advent of eternal light and life to come.

Hope

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Hope

We begin with hope.

The bible tells us the children of God hoped. The prophets, Daniel, Ezekiel, Micah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Malachi foretold of the Promised One. In the midst of Old Testament chaos, in the midst of emptiness, in the midst of darkness, in the midst of doubt, fear, illness, discord, division, hatred, persecution, slavery, class systems, struggle, resistance, torture, conquest, and cultures that went counter to His Word (Torah) and His ways, God’s people hoped the Savior would come. They anticipated, wished, yearned, desired, and longed for Jesus, the Promised Messiah, to come. But what came was silence, the four hundred years of silence, which was from the last of the Old Testament prophet, Malachi, until John the Baptist began, as Isaiah had foretold, to be a voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight the paths for him.’

Throughout this period of silence, generation following generation following generation hoped. This hope wasn’t just a wish or a longing. The hope of those in the Old Testament times was yakhal, which means "to wait in anticipation of an event that was to come to pass with certainty."

During Advent, we anticipate Christmas and it comes. We celebrate a babe in a manger—Emanuel, God with us. We are reminded of hope fulfilled. It is a time for our hearts to renew our hopes, especially the hope we have in Christ—the reason for this Christmas season, the One who lived and