Advent Word 2021: Coming Soon!

 Advent Words 2021: Coming Soon!

We are just a few weeks away from the Advent season. This is my sixth year hosting the Advent Words Challenge and I have been thinking a lot about how to proceed this year. I had a number of new ideas, but then a few weeks ago I was studying for my weekly Bible study, and a passage was cross-referenced that I am very familiar with. Only this time when I read it I noticed that both of the Advents of Christ were referenced. Somehow I had never noticed this before even though I have studied the passage many times. That passage was Titus 2:11-14.

"For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good."

It's not a traditional Advent or Christmas passage, but I really like that we see Christ's first Advent, "the grace of God has appeared" and His second Advent, "the glorious appearing of our Great God and Savior, Jesus Christ". This is what the Advent Season is all about! Too often in our present day, we tend to focus mainly on the first Advent, the birth of Christ. But the Advent season is a call for us to both look back and look forward. We look back and connect with the longing for the Messiah the Israelites had, rejoicing in the Incarnation, and looking forward we connect with our own longing for the Messiah's return - the second Advent. And in between the two Advents - grace to glory - we must connect with God's call on how His people are to live out the life of Christ in this present age.

For the Advent Words Challenge we will spend the first half of the Advent season digging into Titus 2:11-14 and explore the Advent words we find within it. Words such as appear, grace, salvation, hope, wait, glory, Savior. etc. Then for the last half of the challenge we will look at some of the more traditional Advent and Christmas words and passages.

I enjoy having a separate journal for each year's challenge, so I made a new journal to create in for this year. I ended up miscalculating the number of pages I needed and now have double the amount! So, I may end up putting study notes in the back.

I decided to play some more with the painted paper torn collage style I have been doing recently, and have begun making background pages.

I hope you will join me this year. The Advent Words Challenges are meant to be done in community. I so enjoy seeing how people interpret the words and Scripture passages into various creative expresssions - art journaling, collage, photography, poetry, digital art, etc. And I enjoy the conversation and study insights in the Words Challenge Facebook group.

In the next few weeks I will post a calendar with the words and Scripture passages. Here's how it will work and how you can join along:

• I will post daily Bible study devotions, along with how I responded creatively, on this blog each day beginning on November 28 through December 24. You can follow this blog by email or there will be daily links to the posts in the Words Challenge Facebook group
• Respond with whatever creative practice you choose: art journaling, mixed media art, scrapbook, photography, digital art, poetry, creative writing, calligraphy - any way you choose! As you take in the Scripture and devotions into your heart and mind, let it sink even deeper as you practice creatively with your hands.
• Join the Words Challenge Facebook group where you can share your art and ideas and join the conversation through the Advent season and beyond.  I host a number of Words Challenges throughout the year. 
• Share on Instagram and other social media with the hashtag #adventwords2021.
• In the weeks before the Advent season begins reflect and prepare: choose the creative form you will use for your daily practice. Make or buy a journal that fits your creative form.

 Bible Study and Art

I am never happier than when the two things that bring me great joy and pleasure converge. Creating art that comes out of my time spent studying the Word of God helps me both take in the Word more deeply, and it helps me pull together and express what I have studied. My art time then becomes both a way of meditation and an expression of creativity.

A few recent examples:

This year I have been studying 2 Corinthians with a friend. We are doing a slow study and following rabbit trails that come up as we study. I did the above page to walk through 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 and gain a better understanding of what Paul means when he says, "We have this treasure in jars of clay...". (To understand how I "walk through" a passage in study, see this page from the Bible Study Tips and Techniques page.)

This phrase I wrote stuck out for me: We live for Christ.

And that led me on a rabbit-trail study to explore what is said about "living for Christ". I then compiled and visualized what I found.

Next I broke down a passage that keeps popping up in my studies. I have been memorizing it over the past few months.

However, it feels too busy, so I may do it over.  Since I meditate on the Word as I make it visual, it won't have  been wasted time if I choose to do it over.

What do you do to help you take God's Word into your heart and mind in a deeper way?

 Who Should I Be?

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about spirtual transformation and the call on us to become more like Christ. You can read it here . I wrote about how a question in a book by Jen Wilkin was impacting me. Here is a bit from my blog post:

The study of God's Word must transform us into the people God wants us to be. It must enable us in becoming Christ-like. I started reading a book by Jen Wilkin called "In His Image" this summer. I have not, in all honesty, made it much past the introduction because of one question she puts forth.

"For the believer wanting to know God's will for her life, the first question to pose is not "What should I do?" but "Who should I be?" "

This is our highest calling, to grow into the person God calls us to be, to become. Jen Wilkin goes on to say, "Of course, the questions "What should I do?" and "Who should I be?" are not unrelated. But the order in which we ask them matters. If we focus on actions without addressing our hearts, we may end up merely as better behaved lovers of self." 

Who do you look to to answer that question, Who should I be? Do we look to other people - maybe our parents or spouse? Do we look to culture - maybe our national identity or our affinity groups or our job?That question has led me into quite a bit of Bible study, for as Christ followers, it is in Scripture that we must, first and foremost, find the answer to that question. And, in all honesty, the answer to that question is the same for all of us who call ourselves Christ-followers. Who should I be? Be like Christ. Imitate Him.

Who should I be? Be like Christ. Imitate Him.

Summer Art Journaling

 Summer Art Journaling

This has been a different summer for me. Good, but different. I decided early on that I needed to skip a summer Words Challenge. Although I love the summer Words Challenges as I usually go through a book of the Bible, I just sensed that I needed a break this summer. I spent my time making art, doing lots of Bible study, connecting with our families again, reading in the backyard, and landscaping.

My word of the year this year is "rhythm". I started out making rhythm of life weekly spreads, but slowed down some over the summer to a monthly page.

I participated in Junk Journal July on Instagram, which was a nice way to do some art for play using the word promts from @megjournals. Some of my favorite pages were:

And I made a pice of painted paper collage in a frame for my kitchen. I'm working on a companion piece now.

Overall, it was a good summer. We had a few rough spots though. My Father-in-law passed away at the end of July after being ill for quite a while. And we have spent a lot of time with our elderly mothers and their health (and driving) needs. It's that phase in life for us. Then it seemed as soon as the calendar switched to September my planner began to fill and the busyness of the new school year has set in. I'm trying hard to hold onto a few of the rhythms I set during the summer though! It's good to look back at my summer though the art that I made. :)

The Longings of My Heart

The Longings of My Heart

I haven't been blogging much this summer. I've been making art and posting it on Instagram and, for the most part, I've been rather introspective and contemplative over the summer. A lot is weighing on my mind and on my heart. So, I've been reading and making art and praying and digging deeper into the Bible...a lot! 

As I have struggled over the months with concerns about the pandemic, about how divisive things are, and how there seems to be less and less compassion toward one another, I have dug deeper and deeper into Bible study. God's Word guides us to His ways and His heart.

As Christ-followers we have God's Word to guide us, to show us who we are to be and how we are to live. The work of every Christ-follower is to grow in their knowledge of God's Word. But it does not end there. We need to know the text, but we also, just as improtantly, need to live out the text. A quote from Augustine captures this well:

“So anyone who thinks that he has understood the divine scriptures or any part of them, but cannot by his understanding build up this double love of God and neighbor, has not yet succeeded in understanding them.”

The study of God's Word must transform us into the people God wants us to be. It must enable us in becoming Christ-like. I started reading a book by Jen Wilkin called "In His Image" this summer. I have not, in all honesty, made it much past the introduction because of one question she puts forth.

"For the believer wanting to know God's will for her life, the first question to pose is not "What should I do?" but "Who should I be?" "

This is our highest calling, to grow into the person God calls us to be, to become. Jen Wilkin goes on to say, "Of course, the questions "What should I do?" and "Who should I be?" are not unrelated. But the order in which we ask them matters. If we focus on actions without addressing our hearts, we may end up merely as better behaved lovers of self." 

For a number of years we have had a saying at our church that "doing flows out of being". When we focus on who we are to be in Christ, we will then make the decisions that enable us to do the right things, the things we are called by God to do.

As I was trying to pull together the different things I was studying this summer I started trying to narrow the thoughts and Scripture passages down to conclusions. And I tried to make sense of them by jotting them in a kind of mind map type of manner. I have put them together in a journal, cuz making my notes artistic is another way for me to pull things together!

Bottomline: Who should I be? Be like Christ.

Some more photos from my spiritual formation journal:

 

My favorite quote to start a new journal with is:

This quote aptly fits my spiritual formation journal which will fill with quotes and Bible study notes and the "longings of my heart".