"because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace."     - Luke 1:78-79

This Bible verse was given to me a week ago at Reality Check. We asked God to show us something new in the Christmas story and these verses (along with a few others) jumped off the page at me. I wasn't sure why this particular verse seemed to be what God was showing me until tonight.

I have had a rough week with deadlines fast approaching and things piling up at work. Not these things are not my fault...I put them off for far too long. I didn't do enough over the weekend and it all caught up to me on Monday. I had a horrible day Monday with everything crashing in on me and I realized there was no way things were getting done...I didn't have enough time. I spent the entire ride home praying to God to take over the situation and give me efficiency. He did and I finished the project (all except one glitch) today. (I am praying that God will fix the glitch). The truth is that since Monday afternoon when I was praying, I have had a peace about the project. Even today when things didn't go the way I wanted and I was frustrated about the glitch I have encountered, I vented to my coworker and then got back to what I was doing and really didn't stress about it. This afternoon on the way home, I realized there may be an alternate way to fix the problem and suddenly things seem easier.

The interesting thing is that God keeps bringing the above verses up. In the church service Sunday morning, guess what verses we were talking about? Luke 1:78-79. We were talking about God bringing us into the path of peace and our being a light in the darkness to the unsaved. With my recent renewal of desire to go overseas in the mission field, I felt like the entire message was spoken to me and me alone. I ended up in tears a couple of times because the call of the Lord was so strong in my life.

Tonight, I was at rehearsal for Amahl and the Night Visitors, our Christmas musical (of which I am doing lights). When we finished, Andy (the music minister) shared with us the reason we were doing Amahl and asked us to pray for the production and the people who would see it. He shared the reason our Advent theme is "The Path of Peace" (the above verse, again) and also talked about the Wise Men...how they didn't just leave the Christ Child by a different way (physical route), but also differently (because they had met God). He prayed about us having peace in the midst of the chaos and business of the season and I again ended up in tears. It was exactly what I needed to hear.