1 Samuel 2:3 Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.

Are you a parent? If so, has your child ever acted in a manner that caused you concern? Getting down to the cause can be difficult. Young children may not understand why they are acting out frustration, anger, anxiety, or just plain boredom. We as parents might not know the cause either.

You expect that kind of behavior in children. Do we adults ever do that? Have we learned to mask out behavior because past experiences have taught us this act did not get the results we desired? Do we continue in such behavior because it does work?

Arrogance is acting out the acceptance of bad behavior. Being rewarded for bad behavior leads to feelings of entitlement. We see it on the news every day. We might not understand the cause, but we can see the result. Society constantly tries to accommodate those who are acting out by appeasing them rather than addressing the root cause.

God on the other hand knows why people are acting out and what to do about it. The cure for these ills can only be administered by God’s intervention.

Galatians 2:14b when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said

All we can do is speak truth in love as commanded. God will do the rest.

Judges 11:39 And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel,

It has been my custom to write a devotional and update my blog every morning. Sometimes I write the blog in advance, sometimes just before its release. You would not know that unless I told you. It really does not matter unless you have an anticipation and are looking for something. I would not know that unless you wrote to me.

Customs for the most part are established by a pressing emotional force. There is no law involved. We get used to doing certain things at certain times, in certain ways. Obviously there will always be events that alter customs. Natural disasters would be a valid excuse. Death certainly would be excusable. In this modern era, servers go down, connections get lost, equipment failures, all understandable.

Today I am late because of a pressing emotional emergency. Pure emotions, no constraints on anything but my own emotions. When emotions get involved everything stops. Customs, schedules, plans, ideas, desires, hopes, appointments, everything gets set aside.

We are entering into a season of the year that is fill of customs. We just got over Thanksgiving and now we enter into the leading edges of Christmas and New Year. The one thing that this season and customs have in common is a deep emotional attachment. We attach high emotion to this time of year. Will we find comfort or stress? Will we find satisfaction or disappointment? Will we find joy or sadness?

Placing to high an expectation on customs could cause the slightest of disappointment or worse. I will try and make the most out of these moments in light of what happened this morning. There are times when I cannot even control my own emotions. I will lower my expectations and raise my joy at whatever comes my way.

Joy to the world. The Lord has come.