Click here to listen to this weeks Little Seeds Big Hearts podcast as we jump into the Advent season!

Throughout the month of December we will have a new podcast every Monday with a fun activity to do as we learn together about Jesus coming and the beautiful gift of love that was!

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Click here for today’s video! This week’s verse is “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” Isaiah 9:2 NIV

Each week during Advent our Treasure Island aged kids will be challenged to memorize a new Bible verse. Monday’s and Friday’s will be focused on memorizing these verses that follow along with what parents are learning! (So parents, you can memorize them too!)

On Sunday’s at check in, kids will have a chance to recite the verse they memorized to be entered to win a prize so make sure to memorize them each week!

What is something you are waiting for right now? Maybe it’s for the gift you have been wanting, for the school year to end, or to finally be in high school. Or maybe, you’re waiting for something a little different, maybe it’s for a family member to be healed, to have a better relationship with your sibling, or to finally feel like you’ve made your parents proud. Either way, waiting can be very hard. The one thing I have learned from many waiting seasons in my life is that when I lack patience for those things, I miss what God is doing around me and what He is trying to show me.

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” Isaiah 9:2 NIV

The book of Isaiah was written by the prophet Isaiah. Essentially, Isaiah is giving hope to the people in Judah who were facing a lot of darkness, hopelessness, and oppression. When we look at this verse, we see the word light being used twice. This light they are talking about is a promised Messiah (which is Jesus!) These people heard this promise of a Messiah, but not in the way we picture Jesus. They expected a strong military hero to fight their enemies and bring them to safety. But when we picture Jesus, we usually picture a baby born in a manger because this is how the Messiah came! He could’ve been flashy and strong and ready to fight people, but our Jesus humbly came ready to fight sin and death. Jesus was the fulfilled promise of being the light to the people living in darkness.

Some of the people who were waiting on God’s promise had patience, but some of them lost patience and gave up hope. Some of the people turned away or didn’t believe it when the Messiah came in the form of a baby and not a military hero. God never promised them a military hero, so why do you think they expected one? I think that they expected this because they let their desires become louder than what God had initially said. In this holiday season, or just in life, we can be expectant that God will be our light in the situations that are hard. He doesn’t promise us that He will change things to look how we want, but He promises to move into those situations if we let Him. When we allow Jesus into the darkness of whatever we are going through, He promises light and hope because that is exactly who Jesus is!

Whatever waiting season you are going through, remember that the Lord sees it, hears your prayers, and is with you through it all. He offers His strength, guidance, wisdom, and joy to us. Something I like to remember when I am praying for God to change something in my life is that He always answers with a no, yes, or not yet. So remember that He will answer your prayers. Maybe it won’t be in the way you had hoped, but He is doing a work inside of you that you cannot see yet.

Before you go on with your day, take a minute or two to sit on these questions and think about the work that God is doing inside of you!

● What type of things are you hoping for?

● Do you find yourself hoping more for possessions than for God to change something in your life?

● Are your expectations willing to be shifted when God doesn’t answer you in a way that you wanted?

Take a minute to pray about the things you are hoping for. Now, pray for a friend or a family member who you know is waiting for a change in their life. Thank God for sending Jesus as the light to all darkness. Remember, no prayer is too big and no prayer is too small for Jesus to answer.

There’s something raw and honest about Isaiah’s prayer that stops us in our tracks. It’s not a polite and polished kind of prayer. It’s the cry of someone who’s tired of waiting, tired of silence, tired of hoping for change that never seems to come.

READ

Let’s take a moment to read Isaiah 64:1-4:

“Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you!  For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.”

REFLECT

In this raw prayer, the prophet Isaiah is pleading for God to reveal His power and presence to a broken and desperate people. Isaiah is speaking on behalf of the faithful Israelite’s who have messed up dramatically, but are calling out in hope and remembrance of what God had done in the past. 

This is the heart of Advent, a longing for God to break into human history. The prayer was unexpectedly answered centuries later in the form of a baby in a manger. He came down, not as a warrior, but as a baby wrapped in cloth and vulnerability. Majesty made meek. God acted on behalf of those who waited.

God didn’t hold us at a distance. He didn’t wait for us to clean up, shape up, or climb our way to Him. He came close, painfully close. Close enough to be misunderstood, rejected, betrayed. Close enough to sit with us in our mess and provide a way out.

Emmanuel—God with us—isn’t just a Christmas card sentiment. It’s the promise that our longing isn’t one-sided, that God has been pursuing us with love long before we ever thought to pursue Him.

Advent invites us to step into Israel’s longing, to feel the ache of centuries of waiting. We place ourselves in the shoes of the Israelite’s, desperate for God’s nearness, and we let their cry shape our own hearts. This waiting sharpens our gratitude: the God who once came close in Bethlehem is the same God who still draws near to us today.

• What does it mean to wait for God in a world that feels broken? How do we hold onto hope when God seems silent?

• What past “awesome things” has God done in your life, and how might that shape your waiting?

PRAY

God, I come to you with my real heart today—the desires, the questions, the exhaustion. Thank you that you don't need me to have it all together. This Advent, help me recognize the ways you're already near, already working, already expressing your love. Open my eyes to see Emmanuel—God with us. Amen.

READ

There's something raw and honest about Isaiah's prayer that stops us in our tracks. It's not a polite and polished kind of prayer. It's the cry of someone who's tired of waiting, tired of silence, tired of hoping for change that never seems to come.

Let’s take a moment to read Isaiah 64:1-4:

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you!

As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! 

For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.

Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

REFLECT

Maybe you know that feeling. Maybe you've prayed prayers like this—desperate, honest prayers where you've asked God to just show up already. To break through whatever ceiling seems to be between you and heaven. To do something unmistakable, something that changes everything.

Isaiah was speaking to a people who felt abandoned. They'd messed up royally, faced consequences, and now found themselves in a spiritual wasteland wondering if God still cared. 

The prophet's words capture that ache we all feel sometimes—the longing for God to be less distant, less mysterious, more... here.

Here's what's beautiful about Advent: it's God's answer to Isaiah's prayer, though it came centuries later in a way no one expected. God didn't just tear open the heavens with thunder and lightning. He opened them quietly, through a young girl's yes, through a baby's cry in Bethlehem. 

The God of the universe compressed Himself into human flesh, not to intimidate us with power, but to be with us in our mess.

That's the heart of the Incarnation—God's love expressed in the most intimate way possible. Not shouting from heaven, but whispering from a manger. Not demanding our attention through force, but drawing us close through vulnerability.

This Advent season, we're invited into that same kind of honest yearning Isaiah expressed. God doesn't want our pretense or our performance. He wants our real hearts, our real questions, our real desperation. Because when we bring our authentic selves to Him—even the parts that are tired of waiting, frustrated by silence, or struggling to hope—we position ourselves to encounter the God who came close.

The journey we're starting today isn't about working up enough religious feeling to properly celebrate Christmas. It's about paying attention to where we're genuinely longing for God's presence and daring to believe that the Incarnation means He's already closer than we think. 

Emmanuel—God with us—isn't just a Christmas card sentiment. It's the promise that our yearning isn't one-sided, that God has been pursuing us with love long before we ever thought to pursue Him.

RESPOND

Take a moment to process what God might be leading you to do in light of what you read.

• Where in your life are you most yearning for God to "tear open the heavens" and make His presence known?

• What would it look like to bring your most honest longings to God this Advent season?

• How might God already be present in ways you haven't yet recognized?

REST

Take a moment to rest in God’s presence and consider one thing you can take away from your time reading, then close your devotional experience by praying:

God, I come to you with my real heart today—the yearning, the questions, the weariness. Thank you that you don't need me to have it all together. This Advent, help me recognize the ways you're already near, already working, already expressing your love. Open my eyes to see Emmanuel—God with us. Amen.