life. faithful.

When I started looking into the weekly themes for Advent, I realized there's not really a uniform list... so I guess I just get to pick and choose what I focus on ;) So I'm using this list from Focus on the Family a few years ago: Last week was hope, and this week I want to look at faith.    One of the most famous places to look at for faith in the bible is Hebrews 11, often called the "faith hall of fame." In the Voice translation, the chapter starts off with this: " Faith is the assurance of things you have hoped for, the absolute conviction that there are realities you’ve never seen." (Hebrews 11:1) What follows is an amazing list of some of the heroes of the bible: Abel Enoch Noah Abraham Sarah Isaac Jacob Joseph Moses Rahab Gideon Barak Samson Jephthah David Samuel We all love to hear the great, dramatic stories of faith. We are thrilled to hear about miracles and people standing for their faith in the face of great persecution, like Daniel when he was...

 It's the season of Advent, the time set aside for celebration and reflection as we count down to Christmas day. "Advent" means (from the American Heritage Dictionary) "The coming or arrival of something or someone that is important or worthy of note." As a tradition, the celebration of this season has been around for at least 1,500 years...but it's not something I grew up with in a Southern Baptist/Methodist family. This year, though, I feel drawn to focus in these days leading up to Christmas. This first week, my focus is hope. When we generally talk about hope, our meaning usually leans more toward wishing for something. We talk about something we would like to see happen, but something we're really not sure about...we  hope  for our team to win a game, we  hope  to get a certain gift, we  hope  to get to go on a vacation, we  hope  for a certain political outcome. There's a secondary definition of hope, though--to have confidence or trust...