{"id":38480,"date":"2025-12-10T22:00:35","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T05:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=38480"},"modified":"2025-12-09T21:29:36","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T04:29:36","slug":"251211-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/251211-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"Heart-Shaping Promises"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"flex_column av_one_full  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding first  avia-builder-el-0  avia-builder-el-no-sibling  \" style='border-radius:0px; '><section class=\"av_textblock_section \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class='avia_textblock  '   itemprop=\"text\" ><p style=\"text-align: right;\">by Max Lucado<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-38482 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251211_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251211_1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251211_1-300x150.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>No day is accidental or incidental. No acts are random or wasted. Look at Jesus\u2019 birth at Bethlehem. A king ordered a census. Joseph was forced to travel. Mary, round as a ladybug, bounced on a donkey\u2019s back. The hotel was full, the hour was late. The event was one big hassle. Yet out of the hassle, hope was born. It still is.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t like hassles. But I love Christmas because it reminds us of the heart-shaping promises of Christmas. Long after the guests have left, and the carolers have gone home, and the lights have come down, these promises endure: God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God. Perhaps you could use some Christmas this Christmas?<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"CToWUd\" src=\"https:\/\/ci3.googleusercontent.com\/meips\/ADKq_Nacdpqkovykp3qmKY48--a1853N9-3mNYosk0oal5UdQh_LKwpx-f5cIslljmbQfSYRYw9LlQkVFYT-RW3ieJ1p7a18zKqPCmIqd63Vs_Gp=s0-d-e1-ft#https:\/\/maxlucado.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/bob-1-197x300.jpg\" alt=\"Because of Bethlehem\" width=\"100\" height=\"152.284263959\" border=\"0\" data-bit=\"iit\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Read more\u00a0<a title=\"Because of Bethlehem\" href=\"https:\/\/maxlucado.us2.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=bed511e434184985961d50fcb&amp;id=7190eac6d9&amp;e=0716428f80\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/maxlucado.us2.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u%3Dbed511e434184985961d50fcb%26id%3D7190eac6d9%26e%3D0716428f80&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1764831712501000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0X2mSZTzNlEyEqAQWc5pdB\"><em>Because of Bethlehem<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No day is accidental or incidental. No acts are random or wasted. Look at Jesus\u2019 birth at Bethlehem. A king ordered a census. Joseph was forced to travel. Mary, round as a ladybug, bounced on a donkey\u2019s back. The hotel was full, the hour was late. The event was one big hassle. Yet out of the hassle, hope was born. It still is.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t like hassles. But I love Christmas because it reminds us of the heart-shaping promises of Christmas. Long after the guests have left, and the carolers have gone home, and the lights have come down, these promises endure: God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God. Perhaps you could use some Christmas this Christmas?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38482,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-upwords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38480"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38483,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38480\/revisions\/38483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}