Returning Home By Another Way: Embrace New Year’s Aspirations

And some wonder if that these gifts might have enabled the holy family to flee to Egypt to escape the wrath of King Herod, who was looking desperately for this one who was foretold by the prophets who would be born in Bethlehem, who would be the king of the Jews. Herod was looking for this baby and so the holy family fled to Egypt, which would not have been an inexpensive trip. Perhaps they sold some of their gold, frankincense, and myrrh to fund it. [00:47:54] (33 seconds)  #GiftsAsProvision

So in this dream, they're warned not to return by way of Jerusalem, by way of King Herod, but they had to return home by another way. A different path. Probably not the quickest way. Probably not the most convenient way. Probably not the way they had planned to return. It wouldn't make sense practically speaking. And they had to return home, but they had to return by another way. A more complicated way. An unknown way. [00:49:17] (39 seconds)  #TrustTheUnknownPath

``So when we return home to ourselves, you and I, as people of faith, we know what dwells right there inside us. The Christmas story tells us this with the very name of Jesus, Emmanuel, which means what? God with us, the Holy Spirit residing in us. And so when we return to ourselves, we are returning to the presence of God in us. [00:53:20] (27 seconds)  #EmmanuelWithin

But what the story of the wise men teaches us is that we can't return home the same way that we left. We have to forge a new path, an unclear path, a way that we don't understand or know or have even usually planned for, a new path to the home that waits for us in this circuitous path that our life seems to take us on. [00:54:03] (30 seconds)  #ForgeNewPath

Home is this deep place where the Holy Spirit resides, this Emmanuel, God with us. And how do we return? I've been thinking a lot about this lately, my own personal spiritual journey. It seems to me that the way that we return home is simply by a shedding of all the stuff that we've picked up along the way, that we have to molt, if you will, to shed that so that we can return to our truest, most authentic self. [00:54:33] (36 seconds)  #MoltToAuthenticity

these wise men returning home, they could have returned home any countless, myriad ways to return home, and they're still returning in our imagination. We don't know if they've ever made it back yet. But here's what they knew. They knew they couldn't return the same way they came. The way of wisdom would take them on a different path. [00:56:57] (28 seconds)  #WisdomChoosesANewWay

Resolutions says something like this, I resolve to lose 20 pounds this year, and by February, I've forgotten that New Year's resolution. Aspirational living looks something more like this. I aspire to honor this body that God has given me, to treat it appropriately, to move my body in ways that give me joy. Right? Do you see the difference there? Instead of fixing what's broken, to honor that which God has made. It's a different kind of mindset. [00:59:11] (36 seconds)  #HonorTheBody

What new path is God calling you to take on your way home? What old road is no longer available to you? What new course must you chart? It could look like any number of things. It could look like aspiring to deeper authenticity in relationships with the people you love, people in your neighborhood. Maybe it's aspiring to greater courage, to finally live into that calling, that whisper that God has placed in your heart from the time you were a young person. [01:00:11] (36 seconds)  #AnswerTheWhisper