Reflections from our church family this Advent.
Follow the whole series here.
Connected
Do you know what FOMO is ?
If not, don’t worry your not missing out .. FOMO is the Fear Of Missing Out.
Sound familiar? It’s a condition that affects many of us. Were you the child doing everything you could to stay up later so you wouldn’t miss out on something?
Fomo is a modern term for a concept that has been round for a very long time. In fact it can be traced back to Genesis. Fear of missing out is what convinced Eve to eat the apple. Fear that God was withholding something from them. And yet God had given them all they needed.
As we count down the days to Christmas. It’s easy to feel like your missing out and disconnected. Most of us use technology to connect with others whether it’s Facebook, texting or other social media. But the reality is the more we try to replace face to face interaction with technology the less connected we feel. And especially at Christmas it’s easy to feel isolated or that your missing out.
But God is alway there. God wants us to connect with him. God wants us to know his goodness and wants us to know what it is to be connected to him. And we know this when we continually fix our eyes on Jesus. Because we only truly miss out when we lose focus on God.
Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
PrayerLink to this section
Father, thank you that you never want to withhold yourself from us. As we come towards celebrating the birth of Jesus show us how to connect better with the people around us. Help us not to get so busy with our todo lists and getting through the busyness of the season that we don’t take time to connect and enjoy moments with friends and family and the people around us. And in the busyness I pray we will all experience moments of peace that can only come from you. God help us to be people of intentional connection with you and with those around us.
Amen