Today’s passage is also extremely name heavy. It introduces the Levites and priests who came with Zerubbabel and Jeshua. Some of the names are repeated, so I’m guessing this is kind of like a genealogy but I’m not sure.
Beware, the rest of this is basically me just talking to myself.
I’ll reflect on the advent thing again. Today’s verse is Isaiah 40:31 but I like the context from verse 29 up until 31 because I feel that just verse 31 doesn’t give the full picture. I bet there’s more context in the rest of the passage too, but it’s good enough.
Verse 30 shows us what happens when we don’t rely on God to give us power: we faint and get weary, and we fall exhausted. But in contrast, even when we are faint, God will give us strength and He will renew us to where we will soar like eagles and stuff. The title of today’s advent thing is hope. God is giving us hope that He will renew our strength.
In my life, I hope for lots of worldly things, but that’s more of a wish, not a hope. My parent’s know what I wish for. But I want to turn my hope towards God, and I want to hope that God gives me strength. This hope is not a blind hope, but it is a hope knowing that God will give it to me in His own time. I wouldn’t even call it hope.
The question is asking me what makes me most exhausted right now and what could it look like for me to put my hope in God for strength and direction. Right now, I am typing right after a water polo practice, so I think my body is pretty exhausted. But normally, I would say the most exhausting things are school, being productive at home, and not getting enough sleep. To look to God for strength and direction, I want to surround myself with people of God who push me to be more God loving instead of pushing me away from God. I have lots of Christian friends, but I don’t feel necessarily closer to God through their presence and conversation. That’s not a super bad thing, but I want to make the first move of that as well. Also, I want to feel motivated by Jesus. At Teens Retreat 2025 in March, I learned about how our work actually is pleasing to God, which makes me look at school and homework and stuff differently from when I thought it was all a waste of time. Now, I see the beauty that, although I don’t like it, it is pleasing to God, so that is why I should keep going on with school. Also, sometimes it’s fun but whatever… For sleep, I guess that also just goes along with not being distracted at home so that I can sleep earlier, I don’t really know, but I will certainly pray about it.
I honestly don’t know what I even said, but that’s cool!
Thankfulness:
• School friends
• Polo for pushing myself
• Backup strings
• Some Church friends who I can talk to a lot
• Driving