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Advent Week 3: The Way of Surprise, Day 2

Have you ever had trouble changing course at God's behest? Do you live day to day or do you develop long range plans?

by David Joynt on December 09, 2016


OUCH!
LUKE 1:34

"How can this be—since I am a virgin!?" One of the challenges of serving God and following Jesus is that our plans frequently get altered or set aside. It is not simply the fact that God's plans surprise us, it is the inevitable consequence that they change ours. Mary knows a baby will complicate her relationships with Joseph and his family, with her family, and with the people of small town Nazareth. There will be tears and anger and heartbreak. She will take a new and awesome responsibility that will lift her out of the pattern of common life. Raising a child of God is a remarkable calling; raising the Son of God is hard to imagine.

Have you ever had trouble changing course at God's behest?

Do you live day to day or do you develop long range plans?

FAMILY TIME: Ask everyone what kind of long-range plans and dreams they have.

Tags: advent, surprise

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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