​As we enjoy these days of Christmas we should take some time to focus our thoughts and prayers on God’s gift of perfect love; His Son.  Love is, after all the only reason God could possibly have for lavishing such a sinful people with such an extraordinary gift.

Many things have come along over the years that have changed the world.  Henry Ford’s Model-T weighed 1,450 pounds and it changed the way the world moved.  The first washing machine weighed over 250 pounds and it made cleaning things easier. The first computer weighed nearly one ton and it gave the world access to more knowledge and communication.  As valuable, helpful and convenient as these and other modern changes are, they haven’t always changed our life for the better.  In fact, sometimes changes in our world just muddy up the water and clutter our focus.  Bigger, faster and more convenient isn’t always better.  Sometimes all these changes lead us away from the love, peace and joy God sent His Son to this earth to bring us.

The most significant change for the people of God’s earth weighed only seven pounds and arrived in the humblest surrounding imaginable.  There was no million-dollar marketing scheme to prepare us for His arrival.  There was no multi-million-dollar Super Bowl commercial to get us all hyped up about His coming.  There was simply a seven-pound miracle that came to change EVERYTHING!  If we would embrace it and all the Christ Child brought us, we could move through our days with hearts overflowing with joy. We would travel through life here on earth more easily than the first passengers in a Model-T. If we opened ourselves to God’s mercy and forgiveness, we would be washed whiter than any garment to pass through even the most efficient washing machine.   If we shared the love that little seven pound wonder came to bring us, we would speak and act with more wisdom and knowledge than any computer could generate.  Maybe, if we would slow down this Christmas to absorb the absolute Wonder and Awe of the coming of Christ, we would begin to find our balance and see that God sent His Son to earth to change us significantly.

  A seed to plant: Take time this Christmas to gaze at the Christ Child in the manger and ask God to help you see what changes are needed to draw closer to Him.  It’s ok to start small, after all the biggest change ever only weighed seven pounds.  ​

Blessings on your day! 

​Raise your hand if at least once in the past couple of weeks you’ve looked at the Christmas gifts you’ve purchased and wondered if they were just right or fancy enough, fun enough, thoughtful enough or impressive enough. I completely understand how important gift giving is, but I also know it can suck the joy right out of the season.  It can be such a comparison game and that doesn’t usually lead us to a good place.  As we ramble through these next few days leading up to Christmas it might be time to look at things the opposite way and refill our hearts with some peace and joy.
If we really think about it, I would be willing to bet we can all think of a gift from our past that we remember fondly, and I would also hazard a guess that it is probably a simple reason we remember it.  For me, it was a doll bed made by my dad out of an orange crate from my Grandpa Ted’s grocery store. My mom painted it and made a little pillow and mattress and blanket for the bed. I still have it…my daughter used it and someday my granddaughters will too.  It isn’t special because it was fancy, expensive or impressive, in fact it was quite the opposite, but it was the love that adds so richly to its value.  It was perfectly wonderful, but it was completely opposite of what the other little girls in my class got for Christmas that year.
The gift of God’s Son was the greatest gift we could imagine, and the story of His birth has some opposites that we can learn a great deal from.  As a Christmas gift to yourself, take a look at these and ponder the depth of this 2,000-year-old gift and how relevant it still is today.
**We think about being noticed…clothes, cars, position, houses, what our kids are doing but Jesus entered in the darkness and danger of night as a simple “nobody” who quietly and with hardly any notice entered the world only to bring a power, majesty and grace that we still struggle to comprehend. Lord, when others see me, may they really see YOU!
**We can get a little steamed up when things become inconvenient or untimely for us or when people make too many demands on our time.  Mary rode for days and days on a donkey over rugged, dangerous terrain while 9 months pregnant only to get off the donkey just in time to give birth in the same spot a bunch of stinky animals hung out. Lord, remind me you will bring GOOD from every situation in your own time!
**We worry about money, investments, savings and nest eggs seeking the security we think they’ll bring but the most powerful, influential, memorable, virtuous, magnificent one to ever walk the earth had absolutely NOTHING except a devotion to His Father who provides every treasure we can imagine…he’ll do the same for us. Lord, help me trust in the riches of being your child!
**We fuss about being socially approved.  We ponder what others will think and the impression we make on the people we meet.  Two of the holiest humans of all time, Joseph and Mary were socially scorned and by many were treated as outcasts but they were firmly rooted in the Will of the Father and that was WAY MORE than enough. Lord, help me grow in obedience and humility like Mary and Joseph!
**We sometimes consider the company we keep and whether or not they are good for our image, but the birth of Jesus was made known first to the Shepherds who were one of the least impressive and desirable classes of people of the time. Lord, help me be like the shepherds!
**We worry about giving our kids “all the things” so they will be accepted and won’t feel unloved.  Jesus was raised by parents who didn’t even have enough money to buy the prescribed offering for the Temple Presentation.  They had to opt for the pigeons, which was the lowliest gift given by the poorest of the poor. Lord make me poor in the things of the world so I may truly enjoy the riches of your love and grace!
We should subscribe to the notion that ordinary is the new excellent!  Every single detail about the birth and early life of Jesus was ordinary to the casual observer but what made the ordinary excellent or extraordinary was faith and obedience to the Father’s plan.  We have a false notion that ordinary means insignificant.  If you’ve watched, It’s a Wonderful Life, you know that’s the whole story line.  George Bailey saw himself as insignificant because he never got to do fancy, exciting things but his whole life had been a series of good, ordinary things that had a profound impact on a multitude of people.  If we could just slow down a bit and realize from the moment Jesus entered the world, He was teaching us that the path to His Father is paved with opposites.
A Seed To Plant:  Spend some time praying with one or two of the opposites between Christmas story and your thoughts and attitudes. Ask God to help you discover the beauty of being ordinary.
Blessings on your day and May you have a Peaceful, Joyful, Merry Christmas!
 

It’s really hard to practice patient waiting when things like Amazon Prime, Door Dash and drive-through everything are a common part of our daily lives.  We really don’t have to wait for much of anything but here we are in the second week of Advent where the goal of the whole season is to wait patiently, and we struggle.  The Father loves us so much we begin each new church year with a season designed to help us brush up on our “waiting”.  All three of my kids were overdue but so worth every minute of the extra wait but even though I was pregnant seven extra weeks and had three amazing kids,  I still didn’t learn my “waiting is good” lesson and  I still struggle with being a patient waiter so I’m pretty sure Advent was invented for me! In case patient waiting is tough for you too, here are some things we can do to get better at it.

*Give God permission to make the decisions and do the heavy lifting in your life.  There is a huge difference between waiting FOR God to do something and waiting WITH God while He orchestrates the plan he has for our life.

*When impatience creeps in, trade it for prayer.  Let your prayers be prayers of surrender as you wait.  Sometimes our prayer can simply be a conversation where we advise or counsel God about what we need but the kind of prayer that helps our waiting be fruitful happens when the root of our prayer is; “You are God and I am not!”

*When you feel like rushing instead of lingering, ask the big question…” Where am I WINNING and where am I SINNING?”  The first questions helps us see all the places God is busy in our lives and leads our hearts to be grateful.  When we ponder the second question and invite God into those places, we grow closer to him and depend on him to help us turn our sins into his wins.

* Think outside yourself.  My mom was the master of cutting to the quick and she would often remind me that “life wasn’t all about me”.  Often our impatience or unsettledness is because we’re caught up waiting for God to do what we want and we forget he might be working through us and our circumstances to bless someone else.  If you find yourself stuck in a “woe is me” funk the greatest way to snap out of it is to do something kind and generous for someone else and remember God will never be outdone in generosity.

*When considering if waiting is worth it, consider whether you’d like to feel closer to Jesus on Christmas Eve than you did at the beginning of Advent.  The difference will come from what you allow into the middle.  One of my favorite lines from the Chosen series was after the demons had been cast out of Mary Magdalene and she said, “I can’t explain it, I was one way and now I am completely different and the only thing in between was Him.” 

Learning to wait for the Lord is a blessing…let’s use the remainder of this Advent season to allow Him to be “in between” where we are and where we’re He’s leading us.

A Seed To Plant:  On a scale of 1 to 10 how good are you at waiting?  If you’d like to bump up your score, choose one of the ideas above and put it into action this week.

Blessings on your day!