Petting Zoo of another sort

Isaiah 11:1-10

Then Isaiah tells us that the Messianic Petting Zoo shall unfold, "the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid, the calf and the young lion, with a child to guide them, the cow and the bear, the lion and the ox, the baby and the cobra."

What a beautiful picture and image what can be when we all are penetrated with knowledge of the Lord. 

WHo are the bears and lions and cobras and leopards in your life? WHo are the predators, those that are aggressive that seek to dominate and control, those that need to be stood up to?

Who are the cows, the lambs, the kids, the ox those that are passive, those that get lost amongst the crowd, those who need to be defended and aided along the way?

How can this Advent bring you to that point of allowing the knowledge of the Lord to lead you to a new place of forgiveness, a new place of loving, a new place of relating?
*******************************************

A stump is the remains of a once healthy tree that has succumbed to the elements either by nature or by force and is now only a shadow of what it used to be.

God begins to build this messianic promise in the unlikeliest places. From that place that looks dead and barren, from that place that appears done and over, from that place where life seems fade and hopeless, from that place new life shall begin, hope shall arise. 

Look around in your life and see if you can identify that place or those places. Maybe there is where God is waiting for you.