Getting Job-ed
Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room.
–Joy to the World, Isaac Watts, 1719
Happy first day of Advent (days leading up to Christ’s first coming)! We will be releasing an Advent study every day leading up to December 25th. So let’s jump in.
We tend to make excuses about how this time of the year is so busy that we can miss the reason for the season (often used cliche). However, I’ll say that our lives are too busy almost all of the year that we often miss the reason for everything! I think this time of the year is a good to time really slow down, maybe get some new rhythms of life in place to spring us into the following year.
The Shema
I wrote about this in a paper for my degree in 2022, the Shema is a famous passage in Deuteronomy 6 that was known by heart by the Israelites. This was also quoted by Jesus in Matthew 22:36-40. The Shema reads:
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9 ESV
The “Shema,” or “listen” in Hebrew, is not a call just to hear a message but that this message should call us to do something. (1) This “listening” is calling us to love God, and that love for God should cause us to “listen” and obey. (2) This love should permeate all aspects of life (as seen in the passage), and all aspects of life should respond to the call to “love” and “listen.”
This Christmas season, I challenge you to respond to God’s call to slow down and meditate day and night, with your family and by yourself, on God and His Word. What else can matter more than this? What else can urgently take our attention off the only Being that is truly worthy of that attention? God deserves all of our affections, love, and devotion. Nothing is more important than this relationship (Matthew 10:37-39). Advent should cause us to slow down, reprioritize our lives around Jesus. We need to chew on the Shema and make room for Jesus in all aspects of our lives.
-Austin
Bibliography
- “The Book of Deuteronomy,” Bible Project, accessed November 15, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMhmDPWeftw
- “The Book of Deuteronomy,” Bible Project, accessed November 15, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMhmDPWeftw
