2022 was the year I found out that I kept God in a box. I wanted to pray for God’s healing and His will at the same time, but that didn’t feel right because how could it be both? I wanted to pray for others, but didn’t know what to pray for. I wanted to hear his voice, but didn’t always recognize it. My God-box was too small. I didn’t even know I’d been keeping limits on God by putting Him in a box. The limitations weren’t God’s; they were mine.

But, during Advent and Christmas, what hit me very strongly was that God was willing to put himself in a box—for me, for you, for us. When we try to think about the vastness of God, no limitations in any way, shape, or form, we can only see little glimpses of what might be. And yet, he came down to earth’s very finite limitations in the weakest, possible form of humanity: a baby born to the poorest of the poor.

As I talked about last week, in The Book of Mysteries, Jonathan Cahn introduced me to the Hebrew word Aliyah. How Jesus made Alijah for us when he climbed the mountain to Jerusalem, the hill to Golgotha, and the cross. God descended and ascended for us; this is His salvation plan for humanity.

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Jesus began his ascent to Jerusalem
for the culmination of His salvation plan,
each step more painful than the last.

But it began 33 years earlier with a descent:
from omnipotent, glorious God
to a human baby born in a stable;
the great I AM in puny, powerless human form.

For this is how God so loved the world,
with a great fall to humanhood,
for us, for love;
so that we can climb our assigned mountain
as spiritual persons on spiritual journeys.

Not only that, we never climb alone;
He makes the climb with us: each step, each choice
as we lift our eyes up in living hope
climbing ever higher in the Kingdom of God
here on earth now and for eternity to come
in close relationship with Him.

Aliyah, life’s upward journey
from baby, to death, to new life,
step by step, choice by choice, day by day;
climbing with an ever-present guide
who is watching your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

~ Kathleen Evenhouse, December 2022

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