DAY 25

I’m writing this very,  very early Christmas morning and I am hearing the most lovely birdsong in the depth of the night! It’s wonderful. Are they singing to welcome Him?! It reminds me of the poem ‘The Oxen’ by Thomas Hardy in which he describes a traditional belief that the Oxen would kneel on Christmas Eve in honour of Jesus, somehow knowing that it is Christmas.

And I can’t think of a better way to begin Christmas day than thinking of the kindness of God and I think this hymn sums this up beautifully.


There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
like the wideness of the sea.
There’s a kindness in God’s justice,
which is more than liberty.

There is welcome for the sinner,
and more graces for the good.
There is mercy with the Savior,
there is healing in his blood.

But we make God’s love too narrow
by false limits of our own,
and we magnify its strictness
with a zeal God will not own.

For the love of God is broader
than the measures of the mind,
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.

If our love were but more simple,
we should rest upon God’s word,
and our lives would be illumined
by the presence of our Lord.



Prayer
Lord help us to ‘be the first to love’, not waiting to be perfectly appreciated. Help us not to block or narrow the path to your love and justice.