This season as we celebrate Advent, I consider what it means to prepare. What are we preparing? We prepare food, a place for guests to stay, we prepare presents, decorations, traveling accommodations, and schedules. Preparing for Christmas can quickly become a series of meaningless tasks when we lose sight of the true meaning.

What does Advent season ask us to prepare? We are preparing our hearts: the heart – the seat of our affections, the center for all our thoughts and actions. Scientists have been surprised to recently discover what theologians have been saying for thousands of years. The mind is informed by the heart. According to scientific research, the mind gets its messages from the emotions and affections or inflictions of the heart.

Advent asks us to prepare our hearts, to take inventory of the toxic emotions that cannot co-exist with the God of love. This includes envy, bitterness, hatred, malice, fear, and greed. To repent, which is defined as making a confession and demonstrating a willingness to do the work to change.

We can hang stockings, put up trees, string lights but none of this prepares us for the transformation of the season. This Advent season, let us spend silent time bending the knee to allow the Holy Spirit to make room for Christ in our hearts.

“That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner self, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”  – Ephesians 3:15-17