Christmas Countdown 2018 Day 9

It’s the second Sunday of Advent and just like I knew would happen when I planned to do a verse a day for our Countdown, we had the first of the super busy weekends that will finish this marathon that will carry us to the end of the year 2018.

Right now I have two breakfast casseroles resting in the fridge to pop in the oven tomorrow morning and take to our 8 AM Sunday School class breakfast. 

In various beds around the house are sleeping grandchildren and the man I married thirty-seven and a half years ago. 

Today he trekked with me to meet up with this crazy crew at a reindeer farm. 

I probably could have bought a fairly nice North Face jacket for what we spent on gas, lunch and tickets for the “Reindeer Experience” and I can tell you….I would have pawned all my coats and a couple of pairs of mittens just to see their sweet faces as those amazing animals came right up and ate out of our hands.

Because they are my people. 

They are worth far more than any amount of cash I could ever tuck away in a bank account. 

To love them and know them and spend time with them….to think about them all the time…and their Uncle John and Tia…oh..that’s my heart beat on planet earth. 

And sure I care about a lot of people, but these … these are my flesh and blood. 

So when Jesus says in John 17:9…I am not praying for those who are of the world…it’s not that He didn’t come to save all of us…but as He is finishing it all out…He is praying for His people. 

The ones who loved Him as good as us selfish, goofy, flawed humans can grasp love.

Because there were others who didn’t love Him.

They didn’t choose Him.

They didn’t want to be part of Him and so they were not part of Him.

So as He prayed in the Garden….He wasn’t being mean….He was just praying for the ones who were His.  

He was praying for the ones He had traveled with and “done life with” and who had recognized that He was from God and believed He was Messiah…and even if they didn’t get it right all the time, they were willing to hang in there and learn some more when they messed up. 

So today, if you are having some time with your people…your family by blood…your family in the Blood…your family that used to be just friends but have found such a deep place in your heart that you may as well share the same DNA…and you are loving them so much that sometimes it almost hurts…

remember…

YOU…

You are HIS people. 

He is praying for you. 

He loves you with that intensity and more…and He loves you perfectly.

Rest in that today my friend.

Rest in the truth that if you have believed in Him and have believed HIM…

YOU ARE HIS PEOPLE…

Rest well in that today …. deer….<3