It’s holiday season; Christmas in particular and I feel compelled to ask just a few questions; mostly to ask out aloud some questions and realizations that have been working through my mind. I honestly feel different this year, this season compared to any other period like this that I remember.
If there ever was a time that I had a doubt; now I am absolutely certain that life without Jesus is empty, meaningless and vain. I found myself in a store in a position where I could buy everything that I wanted at that point and still be in a position to have change at the end of it all. It was a new feeling for me, a phenomenon I don’t recall ever experiencing. What I however recall most acutely at that moment is how unfulfilling and meaningless it felt; how it didn’t change anything about the state of peace or turmoil in my heart. Almost immediately I realized or it occurred to me that it would probably feel the same if I had all the money that I ever desire; that none of it could ever really fulfil me.
And now as we are at Christmas, my question is this; What does Christmas mean to you? Is it about food, drink, partying or something more? Is it merely about that new place? That present? Not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with any of this of itself, in the right context, all of this will build and cement relationships and connection but chased for itself, it is a chase for the elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Which brings me to the point of what Christmas is, or what I have realized it to be for me this year.
Christmas is the story of a relationship; of the love that God has for humanity to bring us into the fellowship of His family, and to make us right with him. At times just the meditation of this, that God wants relationship with me is something that I struggle with; that I have to fight to believe because I am so used to performing, to earning my way by what I do and the concept that this is free is very foreign to me. It is a thought by which I am undone, by which I am shaken and by which any walls of self righteousness are broken down because I realize that I just cannot earn this kind of love.
So as I look at Christmas, as I ask myself the gift that I want or what it is I really want, my answer is really simple—it is to see the joy of family in this season….
Selah