Christmas

It will be so nice to get home today even if it is late tonight after traveling for seven of the last nine days.  It is difficult to me to capture what Christmas means being away from family.  Being close and spending time with my family and snuggling with Julie eating gingerbread or sugar cookies with hot chocolate while listening to Christmas music and looking at twinkling lights.  Hard to do when you’re not there.  Every year I feel the need to purposefully and consciously capture each moment.  Live in it and enjoy it.  Don’t let the world steal it from you.

Every year it seems this conflict goes on.  If it's not work it’s Christmas itself trying to steal the joy from the season.  Party planning, parties, kid events, helping with events, putting up the lights and decorations, taking down the lights and decorations, making cards, mailing cards, buying gifts, wrapping gifts, and figuring out to be at who’s house when.  The movie Christmas Vacation does a good job poking fun at all of this.  It’s the world trying to steal the essence of Christmas from you.

The essence of Christmas is the celebration of Jesus the Messiah, the only Son of the one true living God.  He was a gift to all of mankind as the single way for man to approach, communicate, and commune with God.  “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall have everlasting life.”  The celebration of Christmas is the “God so loved the world that He gave” part of His message.  This is the time when we acknowledge that for all our wrongs, for all our bad attitudes, bad character, ill-will, pain, suffering, and desperation, God so loved us He made a way for us to be with Him.  We are loved even as we are so very unlovable. 

Christmas is a time of reflection upon all that is good that comes from God.  Love, Joy, Peace.  These still exist.  It does exist no matter how much the news tries to tell you differently.  And they will always exist because the Lord will always exist.  He is before; He is now; He is tomorrow. 

We can be thankful and grateful for such love, no matter what else is going on around us.  We get to do the one thing that He did, give to others.  It is more than just making a list and being so glad when we’ve checked the last name off the list.  It’s being excited and thankful that we get a set aside opportunity to give to others.  It should always be our privilege to give to others as a reflection of how He gave, even if it is only in a small way.

If we take the time to reflect correctly, we are reminded of when we were young or younger and the good times of Christmas and its warmth grow in our hearts.  Psalms 103:2-5 says, “Bless the Lord, O my soul.  And forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases, Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, Who satisfies your mouth with good things, So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”  It is Christmas and when we reflect upon all that God has done for us and upon Him, we do feel younger and the warmth of that glows inside.

May I take the time in each moment this season to reflect upon its single importance as no matter where I am or who is doing what around me.  It is a moment for me to be thankful and grateful as I grasp the essence of God giving so freely to even me.  I don’t know what will happen in the world today or tomorrow; I don’t know if I’ll be alive tomorrow; I have no guarantee of a single thing except that God is and that is enough.  Every moment know that God is, He gave, and you have that in your heart.  This realization will make that moment very special this season.  Consciously fight for it.