Surrendering to God\u2019s plan, she gave herself up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This nobler version of giving up is found woven throughout the entire Christmas story: Joseph relinquishing his plan to divorce his pregnant fianc\u00e9e, the shepherds giving up a night of normalcy to investigate a holy interruption, the magi surrendering time and treasure to worship an unexpectedly packaged king. Each of them gave up something personal in cooperation with God\u2019s plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you look closely, I think you\u2019ll find that the theme of giving up is also woven throughout this issue of Message of the Open Bible<\/em>. In this piece by Danielle Smith<\/strong>, teenagers in Nogales gave up expectations about what their mission trip would look like and discovered God was already at work in the changed plans. In our feature article about the Spokane fires, Spokane churches gave sacrificially of homes, money, time, and care when their neighbors lost nearly everything. And Jessica Sanford’s<\/strong> Five Things article invites us to give up what we all battle during the holidays: unrealistic expectations, overfilled schedules, and the pressure to manufacture the \u201cperfect\u201d Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the holidays sneak up on us again, I invite you to join me in taking a risk (see what I did there?): give up! Not by taking yourself out of the game, but by surrendering the pieces that don\u2019t matter in favor of the One that does. After all, when Jesus was faced with what looked like certain defeat, He knowingly and willingly stayed in the game. Like His mother Mary before Him, He put Himself on the board. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFather, into your hands I commit my spirit\u201d<\/strong><\/em> (Luke 23:46 NIV).<\/em> Surrendering to God\u2019s plan, Jesus gave Himself up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n God, show us what it means to give ourselves wholly to you. Let this be a season of holy surrender for us all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n About the Author<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hannah Bemis<\/em><\/strong> currently serves as the editor and director of Message of the Open Bible.<\/em> She always wanted to do too many things when she grew up, and God has been kind enough to let her do most of them in different seasons. Those seasons have included raising little ones at home, teaching, writing, and staff pastoring, with Hannah\u2019s most recent adventure being planting and pastoring College Street Church<\/strong> in Newberg, Oregon, with her husband, Jordan. After Jesus and all her favorite people, she spends the remainder of her passion on pizza and dark chocolate in equal measure. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n When my husband and I were newly married, we got super into the board game Risk. The object of the game is to achieve global domination by strategically placing your army pieces on a giant map, conquering every territory on the board and eliminating all other players. Risk has been delighting players since its inception […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":24739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"Helvetica","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[420],"class_list":["post-24738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-the-editor","tag-nov-dec26"],"yoast_head":"\n
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