Usually around the 4^thof July, I begin singing just a few lines of Winter Wonderland: ‘sleigh bells ring are you listening…” My staff yell at me that it is too early for Christmas music and that I am wishing my life away. But before you know it, it’s the First Week of Advent. The awareness of this moment is surely a metaphor for the message of the Scriptures today: we don’t know when the hour will come. It will be unexpected. This is why the true disciple must be vigilant, watch and be ready.

This Advent time offers us the opportunity to build up our faith, a faith we know from Scripture that comes from listening. It is this listening that God speaks to us and re-enforces our relationship with Him.

God offers us time to be still. In this stillness, we are able to lay down our anxieties and fears and rest a bit in His Presence.

If you would take just five minutes, maybe ten each morning to place yourself in the Presence of God and without words or thoughts give yourselves over to the silence of that moment with only the name of Jesus on your lips, you would have a better day, a holier Christmas and a healthier life.

Do you hear them sleigh bells ringing? Be vigilant then, He has already come!