“Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold a virgin shall be with child and bear a son and she will call His name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14)

Advent began Sunday, December 2, 2018. The season where we begin to look forward to the birth of Jesus. Our Lord and our Savior. This is a time each year when I look inward and examine my life and my actions to see if they are in line with what I profess to believe. To see if they point toward the coming of the Messiah. It is a time of introspection and is a deeply personal time. And, as always each year, I welcome you along this daily journey with me.

I’ve used this same illustration each year as Advent begins because it seems to set the tone for this time. When I was in college, a group of us guys spent the day strolling around in Olde Towne Augusta. We saw a sign for “Madame Rosa – Psychic” and pooled our hard-earned (parent) money to get a reading. Madame Rosa told me that I would marry just out of college, have a large family and travel the world with my career. Some forty years later, I am not married, have no children and only traveled as far as downtown Atlanta for my career. Obviously, Madame Rosa did not have a lot of connections in the cosmic world.

Like many prophets, Isaiah was ridiculed for his messages, mainly because they weren’t the messages that the people of Judah wanted to hear. But, Isaiah stood firm in his calling, in his preaching and in his beliefs and God proved him correct as the years came to pass. “A virgin? Have a child? The coming Messiah? How ridiculous can this man be?” the people must have hooted with laughter. Yet, Isaiah proclaimed his message without falter and without failure.

Thanks be to God that His prophet, Isaiah, was obedient and receptive to his calling and God used him to foretell the coming Messiah. During this coming season of Advent, may we be more receptive to hearing God’s messengers than were the people of Isaiah’s day.

Spend some quiet time with the Lord today.

And for today my friends, this has been the gospel according to Jimmy.