Bible, Christmas, family activities, family fun, Holiday

That’s What Christmas is All About

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For years I have struggled to find that balance to make Christmas fun, memorable, exciting, and focused on Jesus.  There is so much Christmas all around starting often months before December that I have a hard time not getting swept up in it. I love making crafts and baking which the Christmas season lends itself to perfectly.  I love giving gifts and decorating my house.  And if I am not careful I can have the best Christmas, one full of fun memories, family, great food but maybe not so much Jesus.

It’s hard to find that balance, isn’t it between celebrating Christmas and celebrating Jesus?  I know there are a million ideas on how to keep Christ in Christmas but let’s face it, it is HARD.  It is hard to focus on two things at once, at least for me.

I have swung the whole pendulum of Christmas over the years from no tree to a small tree to 3 trees.  As well as giving a lot of gifts to giving a few gifts.  Yet every year I have this mix of thoughts as Christmas approaches.  How do I celebrate family, friends, fun, and a blessed life, all the while making Jesus my top focus of the celebration?  I have yet to find the perfect way to do that.  But I will not give up.  I will keep trying.

This year I am trying a few new things and a couple that we have been doing for years.

To start I have a verse I am focusing on this season.  The first one is Isaiah 9:6 “For unto us a Child is born, to us a son, is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulders, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

God has been speaking to me to slow down and focus on the here and now.  To stop being so rushed to move onto the next thing or get stressed about the future.  This verse gives me so many ways to do that.

Christmas: the celebration of a child being born, a son is given to me, for me, to save me.  But that’s not all.  Christmas is a time of giving gifts. God gives gifts too.  First He gave us His son and then the names or attributes.  In Hebrew names were more than just a name.  They were attributes possessed by that person.  So we are given this son of God, to fill us with wonder, to guide us with His counsel, and to be a Mighty God when we feel so small and powerless.  He is an everlasting Father and our Prince of Peace.

This verse frees me to celebrate Christmas, the wonder of Christmas, making wise choices with my time and my money because He will counsel me in how to do these things if I ask.  He will be mighty when I am lacking strength this season and he will be a peace in the midst of craziness.

The second verse I am focusing on this season is Luke 2:10. “And the angel said to them, Fear not, for behold I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people.”

Fear not!  I can stop fearing that I am somehow missing the mark this season.  That I am not doing a good enough job of making Christmas about Christ.  I can just let it go. I can know that I am held by a God who loves me and I don’t have to earn that love.  And I can have great joy in knowing God and His love for me.  After all, it was because of His great love that Jesus came to earth (see John 3:16.) And the best part is this good news of God’s love and the gift of Jesus is for all people.  “For all people” has an interesting meaning in this verse.  It means every part that applies; the emphasis of the total picture while focusing on one piece at a time.

Isn’t it nice to know that God sees the whole picture of humanity while simultaneously seeing the individuals that make up the whole?

Along with those 2 verses, I try to keep my family focused on Jesus too.  I started a new tradition this year.  I made each of my 3 kids an ornament with their name on it and a bible verse.  I asked each of them for a verse that speaks to them the most right now. Then I incorporated the verse into the ornament.  The thought being, each year as we hang those ornaments on the tree we will talk about how God moved in my children with their verse.  Just like we talk about how cute they were in that kindergarten picture that is glued to a paper cut out of a star.

Year by year we can see through ornaments how God has used His word to empower us, change us, and set us free.

We are also doing an advent reading this year.  It’s a new one that focuses on the wonder of Christ.  We read the devotional each night and hang a snowman on our advent tree.  Why a snowman?  Because I love snowmen and when I can get all the family to join me, well that’s magical.

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Bible, Holiday, Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving when you don’t feel all that Thankful

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The last week has been a little hard.  I had to have surgery on my foot for an issue that I had already had two surgeries for on the other foot.  The surgery itself went well but the recovery has, well, been up and down.  I feel like I am living on a rollercoaster.  One day I feel ok and very optimistic, and then the next something will pull or hurt and I will feel like the whole process was a waste of time.  Today would be one of the lower days.  Frustration is winning.  So I sat down at my desk to listen to a worship playlist and read my bible and pull myself out of the funk that I was in.  I am doing a few different Bible readings.  I have my Beth Moore study homework and then I follow Rachel Wojo (which if you don’t know who she is you really should. Her stuff is awesome and very encouraging http://rachelwojo.com). This month’s Bible reading challenge from her is on Thanksgiving.  I opened my bible feeling selfishly not so thankful.  My foot is in a cast. My house is, well, a little out of order because I can’t walk and wonderful husband is trying to do all that I do while still doing his job.  Needless to say, a few things have slipped or just been done differently than I would have.  (And if you are reading this Todd I love you and you have been doing a great job remember I did say I was feeling selfish.)  Ok back to the point – THANKSGIVING. Uh, I wasn’t really in the mood to think about how thankful I should be, how blessed I am.  I was more in the mood to be, well, negative and unhappy and very ungrateful.  Thoughts of why I am going through this again. What if the surgery doesn’t work? And God I don’t want to be thankful right now. I want to mad and self-centred.

I pushed through and read Colossians 3:12-17.  And it hit me, and God’s goodness overwhelmed me in that moment.  I can’t be thankful because I haven’t put on love, and I certainly wasn’t letting Christ’s peace rule me at the moment.  You see, according to this verse there is a list of things we must do and then be thankful.  I was trying to start with thankful which isn’t where God wants us to start. The verse says you must have compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. I had none of that at the moment. It goes on to say bear with one another and if anyone has a complaint against someone, they are to forgive as the Lord has forgiven them.  And above all of this, you are to put on love which binds everything together.  The word bind there has a great meaning.  More than just connecting things together it means “a close inner identity which produces harmony between members joined closely together.”  Love allows kindness and compassion to follow. Love allows me to be humble and meek.  Love propels me towards forgiveness, and love allows me access to God who will bring a peace that only He can to rule my heart.  When I have all of that working in my life, then I can be thankful. I can be thankful that my identity isn’t in a messed up foot but in the love of God.  My identity isn’t in me at all; it is in HIM and Him alone.  Once I realized that I felt this wave of thankfulness.  I am so thankful that in a moment God’s presence can change everything – my mind, my emotions, my perspective, and my identity.

So this week as we head into Thanksgiving, remember this – as you come to the table with your list of what you are thankful for, without time in God’s love first you will not experience true thankfulness.

So in the business of cooking turkeys for hours on low and making the perfect pumpkin pie, and making sure the table is beautiful, take a moment and let God remind you that you are beautiful to him. He loves you more than you can imagine. When you do this, you will be able to come to the table with a heart that overflows with thanksgiving.

 

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Bible, End times, Uncategorized

Look to walk for the days are evil

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I was doing my devotions and I read the strangest verse. Ephesians 5:12 says “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise.”  What the heck does that mean, I thought.  So I went to my trusty Biblehub.com and looked it up.  What I found was very interesting.  The word “look” means “to see something physical with spiritual results.” It carries what is seen into the unseen realm so a person can take the needed action.  And the “walk” in the verse is “how one conducts life, literally walk around or complete a circuit.”  If you add the following few verses, you have a very powerful instruction/warning from God on how to live in these evil days.

In fact, if you look at verses 15 & 16 there is a comma connecting the two into one full sentence.  Verse 16 says “making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”

Making the best use means “to ransom, to buy up for oneself.”  In this verse, it seems to have a slightly different meaning than that. It connects the idea of ransom and buying for yourself from the store. It means to make a wise and sacred use of every opportunity for doing good so that zeal and well-doing is the purchase – money by which we make the time our own.

We are to live buying time with zeal and well-doing.  Wow, that changes how I spend my day!

If we put together both of these thoughts, it is a powerful catalyst to change how we do our day to day life.  We are to be watching; seeing things in the physical but applying the spiritual to them; being led by the spirit in how we act and react in all situations we encounter through the day.  We are to literally buy back time by living with such a zeal for the Lord that we are consumed with His well-doing.  And we are to do this because the days are evil.

I have no idea when Jesus is coming back.  And I have no desire to debate those prophecies. But I do have a rising desire to live more alert to the fact that the days are evil and the time is getting shorter to tell others of the love of Jesus.

I find myself with a stirring I can’t explain and one I never thought I would be excited to have.  End times stuff scares me if I’m being honest.  But suddenly fear is overcome with love for those who are hurting and lost.

Every day we hear of some tragic event on the news – people being killed in senseless acts of evil here in our own towns and all over the world.  But there is good news that is never told.  Yes! Indeed, the days are evil.  But God promises to pour out His spirit in these times like never before.  That zeal that we are supposed to have that comes from looking as we walk through this life is real. It is possible to hear bad, scary news, and then make the most of the time we have living full of zeal for God and His well-doing.  It is an amazing thing when you surrender your life to God and live the way He says to in scripture.

Life is amazing when you look not before you walk but as you walk.  God will open your eyes to see people to pray for, love on, and tell them the good news.

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