It’s a grey, overcast day, but periodically the sun breaks through. When that happens, it’s amazing how much it changes what I see and how I see it.  When I have to go very long without it, the lack of sun depresses me, weighs me down, saps my energy. Things look better, feel better, and for me, are definitely better when the sun breaks through.

As the natural light gets shorter at this time of year, I appreciate the sun even more. Each sunny day is a gift not taken for granted.

Today, as the sun is struggling to get through, it makes me think of how much Jesus is struggling to get through the overcast of drivenness that has gathered through the centuries over the celebration of His coming. This is rarely true of men; almost always of women. Whether we’re driven to do, to buy, to decorate, to cook, or a hundred other things, supposedly to make everyone as happy as the mythical beings of fiction, we’re often driven to distraction. We don’t want to be, we vow not to be, but it seems ingrained in our psyche.

One of the things I haven’t done is to pray about this specifically. I’m wondering what might happen if I were to pray from now until the New Year for the Son to come out. What might happen if I asked God to reach down and dispel the overcast of busyness and running and fatigue and cultural coercion, so the Son could come out? What might happen to those who used to think about Him and now live in greyness, if they could see the Son coming out?  What might happen if people who have never thought about Him and are stuck in the dark, saw the Son come out?

What might happen if you and I both made this a commitment to prayer?

What might happen if a whole lot of people did?

Can we try it and see?

Father, it’s my heartfelt prayer that in this year of so much challenge, the truth, the hope and the light of Jesus would shine through. I pray that your Son would come out in ways that can be seen and felt and experienced. I pray for eyes newly open to see Him and welcome Him.  May this be a time of rejoicing because the Son has come out for all to see! In His precious name I ask it. Amen.