Week Three

Finding time to share the love this Christmas

SEEDS TO SOW: SURPRISED BY THE BEAUTIFUL *

Optional weekly challenge: Find something beautiful to give away, from a smile to a material gift. Don’t forget to be still for a minute and to speak a word of peace to someone.

Read Isaiah 35: 1-10

Finding time to blossom!

Our God is a God or rejuvenation, transformation and new life!

In verse 1 the wilderness itself is personified as being glad and the desert as rejoicing. What do these poetic expressions add to the reading? What differences does it make to think of the landscape itself having feeling and reacting?

Read James 5: 7-10

Finding time to wait this Christmas!

There’s a link made in this reading between being patient with God and patient with one another. Does waiting on God make us more patient with other people? And, alternatively, does waiting on other people make us more patient with God? If so, how? If not, why not?

Read Luke 1: 46-55

Finding time to fill the hungry with good things!

We often think about how to fill ourselves with good things at Christmas, but Mary’s words inspire us to feed the hungry! How can we find time to be inspired by these words to feed the hungry this Christmas? What actions could we take?

* SEEDS TO SOW: We are experimenting with adding a new Seeds to Sow phrase at the beginning of each section. These are open-ended and optional prompts and are designed for people wanting to develop their own resources in response to the themes. Perhaps if you are using this material as a group you could use these prompts to inspire a time of prayer, or drawing, or creative writing? They are a short and sweet, simply a starting off place for you and your imagination. Tailor and develop as suits your group.