Keeping Vigil: A Christmas Quiet Time Devotional

Keeping Vigil: A Christmas Quiet Time Devotional

Before you get started, take a few minutes to quiet your spirit.

Close your eyes and take some slow, deep breaths. Imagine laying every burden and all of those holiday pressures at Jesus’s feet.

Be sure that you are in a comfortable position that allows your heart to be most attentive to His voice. Try to make that space as interruption-free as possible. It should be a set-apart place where you enter, as it were, the Holy of Holies to meet with your Savior.

Ask Jesus to clear away any stray thoughts that may distract you from truly meeting with Him - in order hear all of the things that He has on His heart to say to you today.

Open your journal and have your pen/pencil ready.

When you sense a readiness in your soul...read the passages below slowly.

The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the one who looks for him. It is good that one should be quiet and wait patiently for the Lord’s salvation.

Lamentations 3:25-26

When eight days had passed, Jesus’ parents circumcised him and gave him the name Jesus. This was the name given to him by the angel before he was conceived.

When the time came for Mary and Joseph to do the things the Law of Moses taught about being pure, they brought Jesus to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.

In Jerusalem at the time, there was a man, Simeon by name, a righteous man devoted to God, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. He was waiting in prayerful expectancy for the time when God would come to help Israel. The Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he wouldn’t die before he had seen the Messiah.

Led by the Spirit, he went into the temple area; so, when Mary and Joseph arrived to present the baby Jesus to the Lord in obedience to the law, Simeon was there. He took the child in his arms and praised God, and said,

“Now, Lord, you can let me, your servant, die in peace as you promised. For I have seen with my own eyes how you will save your people. Now all people can see your plan. He is a light to show your way to the other nations and he will bring honor to your people Israel.”

Luke 2:21, 22, 25-32

Now Anna, a prophetess, was also there. She was very old, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, and then as a widow for 84 years. She never left the Temple, but continued to worship there night and day with times of fasting and prayer. She came along just as Simeon was talking with Mary and Joseph, and she began praising God. She talked about the child to everyone who had been waiting expectantly for redemption in Jerusalem.

Luke 2:36-38

Whoever waits at my door and listens for me will be blessed.

Proverbs 8:34

• Now, go back and read the passage again. As you do, be aware of any phrases that tug at your heart. You may want to write those phrases down.

• Read the passage one more time. This time pay attention to any words that seem to stand out to you. Take some time to sit with those words and the phrases that spoke to you. Pull out your journal and write anything that is moving in your spirit.

• Spend some time in dialogue with the Savior about these things. You may want to journal your conversation. (I like to write both what is on my heart and what I feel is on God’s heart as a prayer. When I sense God speaking, I insert my name, to make it personal.)

• Read the passage one more time. Is there an invitation from God? (To ponder, explore, to let go, to respond to?)

• How might you hold these thoughts sacred in the days and weeks to come? What might that look like?

• Close your journal and your eyes and take some time to sit quietly with the Savior and the things He has laid on your heart.

• As your time together comes to a close, be sure to whisper a grateful thank you to Him for meeting you here.