Although December 25th has past, I hope this journal entry encourages anyone who may not have gotten all they wanted for Christmas this year. On Christmas Eve, this is where I was on the subject of Christmas. Next year, I will be in Africa on the World Race during Christmas. This year was the year to savor time with family and friends who are near. And yet, here is where I was hours before Christmas day.
12/24/14
“And so this is Christmas… And what have you done?”
I get this song… I understand what the writer is implying here. But for me, it is one of the worst Christmas carol lines ever written—not because of any bad words, but because of the accusation I hear behind it. I get that this is the time to give and serve. Believe me I’m trying…
These lyrics haunt me that last 48-72 hours before December 25th every year, because it seems I am always coming up short for what I want to do for Christmas verses what I am able to do.
But that makes Christmas all about me then, doesn’t it… it finally took me all this time, but I have finally found that I have been completely looking at Christmas all wrong.
I came to the edge of my stress last night—and well into the morning—about gifts and expectations. Working retail makes it easy to be jaded about gifts—looking at all the expensive things and jealous of people who can spend so much! Again, wrong mindset.
So hopefully, I’ve got all those wrong perspectives out of my head and out of the way. Let’s focus on the right perspective for Christmas. What’s really going to give me that warm, good feeling for Christmas? Again! I’m focusing on myself…
Something inside me believes that I deserve a good Christmas with lots of great gifts and laughs with the family. But the truth is that I deserve none of it, and that’s the whole reason we have Christmas in the first place. I deserve hell fire and eternal damnation without the saving grace of Jesus Christ. I can know all the rules and say all the right things, but I am hollow as a drum without Jesus.
So God, I pray that every expectation is missed and every need is left wanting if it means if it means I can only and truly have Christmas be all about you. I am empty and broken, eternally flawed without abiding in you. Let my heart be forever marked, tattooed and scarred with that truth.
Christmas is not about family, or else there would be no Christmas without them. Christmas is not about presents, or else those who have none each year could not celebrate. Christmas is about Christ. Everyone and everything comes second to that. Is not family a gift from God? Doesn’t every good and perfect thing come from Him? Of course! And I will savor time with family and thoroughly enjoy opening some great gifts. But I pray that my needs and expectations are only found in Him. Everything else is a blessing over and above. I deserve none of it. So I pray that all there is to enjoy in this life—all the family time, good friends and happy memories—are things that I am deeply grateful for, not entitled to.
So with that, Jesus, please embrace me in your open arms as I run to you. Calm every storm in my heart. Relieve every hope deferred. Erase every memory of failure I’ve replayed over and over in my head. Jesus, Emmanuel—my God with me—save me once again from myself. Ground me in your love. I thank you that your words are true. I cling to you and only you this season, and I enjoy everything else with a lighthearted and grateful spirit.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
