Today’s Advent Challenge is an exceptional feat.  The theme is “before” and Proverds chapter eight is describing how Wisdom (whose name is Sophia) was created before  all of God’s work. Being present at the onset  she saw the world come into order, the mountains being shaped, the sea given boundaries, and how the creator marked the foundations of the earth.  The very last stanza from the reading,  “then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, regoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”

While I know there are many great writers like C.S. Lewis and many wonderful movie directors that have dedicated there best to bring a “time before” into the imaginations of the people,  I am afraid that they have missed one very important detail,  a detail most of us miss.  This detail is companionship and joy.   Proverbs 8:31 is exceptional clear.  In the creative process that brought the world into being there was partnership and delight and rejoicing .    What a profound way to understand God.  God from the beginning of time had companionship, and in the creative process there was  delight and rejoicing. 

What a beautiful way of understanding the world before.   Before the physical manifestation of particles being broght together,  there was  a celebration, a rejoicing, a delight, done in companionship, that bore the world into existence.  How glorious to know God is not an isolationist.  What freedom this is for us, for  if  companionship, rejoicing, and delight were part of the creation story that brought us all into being,  we are privileged to ask, “How doe we let companionship, rejoicing and delight be part of what we create, in the now, for what come next?”

Let us pray.  Creator God, Sophia, wisdom  reminds us that companionship is essential to the well being of the creative process and that joy is essential to do things well.  Help us to have companionship and joy so we can create beautiful as you did, glorifying you. In Jesus name.  Amen 

Challenge for the day. Read Proverds 8:22-31. Take a picture or write about the word “before”. Share on social media with #messiahlutheranpc #signs4life #AdventPhoto