Reflection of the Week - 16th April 2024
Don’t you wonder sometimes how our covenant Lord who is God – Creator, Master, and Teacher, can and does create from nothing and does not need anything or anyone but is helplessly in love with you?
Reflection of the week
Posted in Faith
During the season of Advent, members of Westbourne Park Uniting Church have been sharing their own personal reflections and stories in writing. This Reflection of the Week was shared by Rev David Hoffman, the minister of Westbourne Park Uniting Church, and has been re-printed here with permission.
JOY… in all its fullness
“Though you have not seen him [Jesus], you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.” – 1 Peter 1:8
When Anette and I decided to start a family, we thought it would be such a simple and natural thing. I mean, everyone can get pregnant any time they decide to, can’t they?
After a year of trying and a couple of miscarriages, we started to get concerned. We went through all sorts of tests and procedures, but to no avail.
About four years after we first started trying to have a baby, Anette and I threw ourselves before God in prayer and “gave up to God” our hope for children. We had come to understand that life and death are in God’s hands, and we told God we would accept his will, even if it was that we were not to have children of our own.
It was shortly after this that Anette and I experienced the wonderful news that we were pregnant again, and we prayed and prayed while the dangerous first trimester passed. Perhaps you can imagine our joy when Catherine was born?
While Catherine’s birth brought joy to everyone in our extended family, the birth of Jesus Christ brought joy to the whole world. Anticipated for hundreds and hundreds of years, all creation trembled with a fullness of joy at his coming.
God, the Heavenly Father, awaited the birth of his son, Jesus Christ, already knowing what this child would be like (like Father, like Son), and what he would do (bring life for all).
To know this Jesus as our Saviour is to have a source of joy that exceeds mere human happiness and transcends our life circumstances.
When have you experienced a heart overflowing with joy? When did you last contemplate the love God has for you, expressed through his son, Jesus Christ?
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