Let's Celebrate Advent Every Day!: Through Practicing God's Presence!

Advent is the time when we experience the co-mingling of the glory and hope of the birth of Jesus, along with the solemn foretaste of His death on the cross, and also the joy and anticipation of His second coming. As some Advent liturgies put it, "Come, Lord Jesus, come!" Advent marks our anxious desire for complete intimacy with Christ. Christians should experience that Advent feeling every single day of the year, as we yearn for intimacy and transformation through the Spirit. A glorious mingling of sorrow and wonder and hope and joy as we feel the mercy and grace of God.
So we need to contemplate the true meaning of Advent. We should learn to live Advent everyday through learning to leave aside, daily, all the bustle of the commercial world, and find a simple and age old truth. We come to Christ not through riches, but through poverty and humility, in our worthlessness. Not by parading through the rooms of a rich and sumptuous palace to greet a powerful king, but by kneeling in the dust and dirt of a humble stable, by an animal trough in which lies a helpless baby.
The presence of God is not something outside us, something we only find in church, or when we are consciously thinking about God. God is within us and around us at all times. We need to practise the recognition of the presence of God, we need to strip away the world, and the place that is left is where we will recognise God and Christ in us. We need to learn self-discipline, and patience.
In an era where time is a rare commodity, this small book will challenge you and encourage you enough to start your discipline of practicing the presence of God. A relationship where we acquire the ability to turn our thoughts automatically and instinctively toward God. In short, practicing the presence of God, is a contemplative life where our will is turned over to Him as well as our mind, heart and spirit completely turned over to the lover of our soul.