{"id":255,"date":"2009-12-02T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-02T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-grant-us-understanding.html"},"modified":"2009-12-02T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-02T06:00:00","slug":"advent-prayer-grant-us-understanding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-grant-us-understanding.html","title":{"rendered":"Advent Prayer: Grant Us Understanding"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Claudia Mair Burney<br \/>\nWednesday, the first week of Advent<br \/>\n<em>&#8220;Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to Him in a dream and said, &#8220;Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name Him Jesus, for he will save people from their sins.&#8221; Matthew 1:19-21, NRSV.<\/em><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\"><\/div>\n<p>Joseph was obviously a compassionate and deeply devout man with every instinct to protect Mary from public shame, and possibly a stoning. But even with his remarkable qualities, he could not see what God had done. Most of us would have reacted the exact same way. We do so daily in some way or another. The holy and sublime breaks through our ordinary existence, and we fail to see the gift we&#8217;ve been given. But all is not lost. God, in His great love for Joseph, simply found another way to reach him.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\">Merciful Father,<br \/>\nHow often do I fail to understand what You are doing, but You are always sending me help, and even deliverance from my sins. Do not give up on me, good Father, when I am too practical to see the miracles right in front of me. You know how to get my attention. Quiet me, Lord, so that I may hear from you, and see the magnificent gifts you have placed in my life. Help me to receive them, be obedient, and always cry out from the depths of my soul,<br \/>\n&#8220;Come, Lord Jesus.&#8221;<\/div>\n<p><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Claudia Mair Burney Wednesday, the first week of Advent &#8220;Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to Him in a dream and said, &#8220;Joseph, son of David,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,46,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advent","category-advent-prayer","category-prayer"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Advent Prayer: Grant Us Understanding<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-grant-us-understanding.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Advent Prayer: Grant Us Understanding\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Claudia Mair Burney Wednesday, the first week of Advent &#8220;Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to Him in a dream and said, &#8220;Joseph, son of David,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-grant-us-understanding.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prayer, Plain and Simple\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-12-02T06:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Advent Prayer: Grant Us Understanding","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-grant-us-understanding.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Advent Prayer: Grant Us Understanding","og_description":"By Claudia Mair Burney Wednesday, the first week of Advent &#8220;Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 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A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. 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