Advent Meditation Week 3: December 20

Pause with the joy of God who is glad to be with you.These guided reflections go along with our Sunday teaching series "Becoming Human: Embracing Our Humanity In Light of God Becoming Human"HERE is the Advent Guide through the Book of Luke and our Advent Resource Page.Psalm 139: 1-18, 23-24 MSG1-6 God, investigate my life;    get all the facts firsthand.I’m an open book to you;    even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking.You know when I leave and when I get back;    I’m never out of your sight.You know everything I’m going to say    before I start the first sentence.I look behind me and you’re there,    then up ahead and you’re there, too—    your reassuring presence, coming and going.This is too much, too wonderful—    I can’t take it all in!7-12 Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?    to be out of your sight?If I climb to the sky, you’re there!    If I go underground, you’re there!If I flew on morning’s wings    to the far western horizon,You’d find me in a minute—    you’re already there waiting!Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark!    At night I’m immersed in the light!”It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you;    night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.13-16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;    you formed me in my mother’s womb.I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!    Body and soul, I am marvelously made!    I worship in adoration—what a creation!You know me inside and out,    you know every bone in my body;You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,    how I was sculpted from nothing into something.Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;    all the stages of my life were spread out before you,The days of my life all prepared    before I’d even lived one day.17-22 Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!    God, I’ll never comprehend them!I couldn’t even begin to count them—    any more than I could count the sand of the sea.Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!   23-24 Investigate my life, O God,    find out everything about me;Cross-examine and test me,    get a clear picture of what I’m about;See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—    then guide me on the road to eternal life.