It feels like we’re on the downhill slide to Christmas now.

For me, I’ve come back up from the underground that is HSC marking, finishing that midway through this last week. Now it’s time to be making a list (and checking it twice) of what all the other ‘big ticket items’ are for work before I can properly start the festive season.

But I’m glad the marking gig is over for another year. You really start to go a bit crazy reading that many essays. And by the end, you are DONE.

You’d also much rather be doing something else by that time. Sewing, in my case. Even working towards properly setting up a side hustle.

“I’d really like to do this, but instead I have to do that first.”

#adultlife

Although adult life seems more like “I’d really like to do this, but instead I have to that, that, that, that… and even that first.”

The Christian life can seem rather the same at times. We want to do one thing but God says he’s got other things for us to do instead first. It’s times like these when we trust that he has a plan and that there’s a very good reason or reasons for going along with that plan.

I’m sure I’ve quoted it on this blog before, but I really do think God’s words in the Old Testament book of Isaiah absolutely express it clearly:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Christians serve a God who sees the end from the beginning. So he knows the next steps before we do. So we listen to his voice and follow the plan carved out by him for us.

Even if we’d prefer to be sewing and he’s got us reading essays instead.

Probably because it’s almost December this makes me think of Christmas Pudding. A tenuous link I’m sure, but perhaps in the aftermath of marking insanity, this analogy is making sense in my head right now even if it doesn’t ‘land’ for anyone else.

In many families every year the Christmas Pudding makes it to the table on Christmas Day. Now of course, that’s because someone made it every year (in my family, that’s me) but it’s such a staple of the Christmas table spread, that it just keeps turning up and doing its thing.

Also every year, there’ll be some trending dessert ‘must have’ (in the Women’s Weekly or BHG* collection) that might make it to your dessert list because it’s great to have something ‘different’ and ‘unusual’. But those desserts will come and go.

The Christmas pudding, humble and unassuming, will always be wanted on the table. Year after year we just keep jogging it out. Warm and with custard please.

I digress.

We just keep jogging it out. It imbues a sense of constancy and commitment and I think that’s why it came to mind. A signal of the season; of the way things are done. Year after year after year…

#adultlife

#theChristian life

We just have to keep turning up. Doing the things we need to do. When they need to be done. When He (God) tells us to do them. Even if we’d prefer to be doing something else.

Constant. Committed. Humble. Unassuming.

Just keep jogging it out.

In accordance with the plan. Because we trust the one who makes the plan.

And he’s got a good one for you. Far better than you can believe right now.

Yours looking for the custard powder,

Alison

*Better Homes and Gardens, which for the record I have a subscription to