Writing for the third day of Advent from the Toyota garage in Knaresborough as my car is in for a service.
The sign on the desk on arrival says “your journey starts here.”
I’m reminded of the old story of the tourist in Ireland wanting directions. He’s told “I wouldn’t start from here if I were you.”
The point of Advent intervention is that God comes and finds us where we are and beckons us to start a journey with him. We start from our here. This season is all about transformation and working towards a better future. I had a meeting this morning discerning how we work through a difficult time to a place where things might be more straightforward long term but how to journey through the immediate challenges is hard.
“Your journey starts here.”
The challenge of Advent is being brave enough to be prepared to go. We need good preparation to travel. Like a through service for a well used car. We need good Advent disciplines of listening, discerning and vision to travel well. We need to be open to surprise. The first recipients of incarnation didn’t expect what they found on the road or where they needed to travel. This Sunday we will hear of a call to start again to really receive what is coming on our journey.
Wherever we are, God comes, whether our starting point is joy or sorrow, clear direction or no idea, certainty or disillusionment.
The point is God finds us and leads us to where we should be. We can choose to travel or stay where we are. But not to go is to miss where he might be, isn’t it?
On this third day of Advent let’s start a journey. How about it?
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