Advent. Success.

Straining ahead, ever looking forward
to achieve, we run, walk, stumble, crawl
life's race.

This season, even so much more.

And I wonder, on that journey so far
to Bethlehem, how did Mary think, dream, ponder
her aims?

That season, waiting for her child?

Surely she, beautiful with God's grace
and blessing, went heart-skipping, soul-dancing
forward.

That season, resting in his love.

So I take heart, on this God-given day,
with hope, and faith and love,
I laugh.

This season, I smile at the future.

I leave all behind, for that which truly matters
for success, can not be striven for
alone.

This season, God is my Saviour

and Heather Rasmussen says:
Scripture: "He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him."(Psalm 91:5)

"...we need expectation in our God. We wait on Him for life. We are going through the winter season, which visually teaches us something spiritual. When everything is dark and cold, it is the Christmas lights and the home stove fires that we draw near to--the comforting warmth. This teaches us that during spiritually dark times we need a light from God. A light of hope, deliverance from the darkness. The light that keeps our spiritual blood pumping. Our God is called creator, healer, protector, provider, and many others. ...our one God, has many names, all of which will assure that He will meet our needs, the aches within us, and our struggles. One of his names will provide for that need and be a balm for that wound.

The name of God I'm going to focus on is Yeshua. Yeshua in Hebrew is verbal derivative from "to rescue", "to deliver" (Brown, Driver,Briggs Hebrew and English lexicon). In Psalm 91 God says of us, His children, "He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him."

It is God's character to rescue us, HIS children. Since the moment before he created the world, your name was in his Spirit--to be his child, his possession, a part of him, a part of his blood veins. You are in his mind and heart, and he will rescue you. I want to propose to you, in addition to the obvious way of rescuing, delivering, which is also included- a couple different 'out of the box' ways that God wants to be Yeshua to you.

1) Sometimes he wants to be quiet in the moment with us, in trust, and his companionship rescues us.
2) Sometimes in a painful moment he wants us to acknowledge him, and welcome him to share it with us--and sharing rescues us.
3) Sometimes he wants to tangibly, physically deliver us and rescue us. And in this instance he is showing us his mighty, rescuing, championing God-self where his character and actions deliver us.
Yeshua is our deliverer. Yeshua is our friend. He's our Lord. He is walking this life with us.

And just to enhance, to seal, to assure our trust in him, our friend David who wrote the Psalms that so many of us bleed with, who always calls out to Yeshua over and over for rescuing, help, answers, with a bleeding heart—just like the spirit of so many of us. Well, we hear David, as an old man, when all his life has passed, when he is looking behind him at the path he has walked, stumbled, climbed and run with the Lord, we hear him say this on his DEATHBED, included in an oath he gave his wife: "the Lord, who has delivered me from EVERY trouble," (1 Kings 1:29) and he continues his oath to her. The Lord will always rescue us. His name is Yeshua.