Advent 1: The World

This is the first of five posts I'll be doing on the subject of Advent, as we approach Christmas 2010.

I won't be going on the traditional Advent Candle meanings, but focussing on five "presents" that the LORD has given to his people:
1. The World
2. The Promised Land
3. The Law
4. Jesus
5. The Holy Spirit

These may be a bit rambling; I'm just letting it flow.

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I look out of my window at the latest batch of frozen water that has landed on my street and caused travel disruption. While it's easy to get annoyed, it does actually look rather nice.

Travelling around my home area, you can't go too far without running into a "rural area", even in central London, which has some wonderful parks. While these rural areas may at times be muddy and hard to navigate, they definitely look far more varied than the umpteen high streets round here with their samey cheap shops and pawnbrokers.

I don't know very much about trees and flowers, but I know what I like.

This green and blue world is one of God's greatest gifts - and his first. We were given it to look after (as talked about in Genesis). Shame we've rather failed on that over the years.