Tag Archives: Christmas

Five Intentions for Christmas Break

19 Saturday Dec 2020

Posted by in Home and Family, Living Faith

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Today marks the first day of Christmas Break for my family. My husband is off for the next two weeks (which has never happened before!), and the kids and I are off from school. Over breakfast we discussed what we want to do with our holiday time off—but the notes we took down didn’t turn out like your typical Christmas Break Bucket List…

My husband and I are both project-oriented people. We’ve been building mental to-do lists for the coming “break” for a couple of months. So our family’s little exercise could have easily turned into another one of mama and papa’s project lists—without much room for margin.

That’s why my husband had us start our breakfast planning session with more general intentions: How do we want the next two weeks to feel? Not just, what do we want to do, but how do we go about it? What atmosphere are we trying to achieve?

This turned out to be a great place to start, guiding our hearts before drawing up schedules.

christmas break bucket list five intentions

Here are our intentions for Christmas break in five words: Celebratory, Connected, Contemplative, Peaceful, Prepared.

Celebratory  You would think that celebration ought to go without saying (and maybe that’s why it was the first word to come to mind!), but it’s easy to forget that a lot of our chores during this season have celebration as their goal. We want all our doing to be consistent with festivity, with celebration, with joy!

Connected  The people God has put in our path are important. Family and friends near and far, neighbors, our local church—we want to strengthen these connections, sharing with them the joy of the birth of Jesus Christ.

Contemplative  Amid the hustle and bustle, we want to take time to listen, read, learn, and consider. To think deeply, to pay attention. To share what we’re learning and thinking in a leisurely manner with one another.

Peaceful  It’s good to be reminded that our break is not just an opportunity to get more work done! Even while we still want to tackle a few projects (especially between Christmas and New Year’s), we know we need to slow down. To rest. To be still. And to come at all our work and activities from a place of rest rather than rush.

Prepared  We want to both enjoy the fruit of our labor (by being prepared for things in a timely manner) and enjoy the preparing process itself. We can enjoy the process if we remember that our preparations—of food, cards, gifts, etc—enable us to better celebrate and connect with others. And taking the time to calm our hearts, by contemplating the meaning of Christmas, we can more meaningfully engage in the work—even when it seems tedious or overwhelming. Making room for rest is as much a part of our preparation as all of the physical logistics.

It’s been fun to rethink our to-do list in light of these intentions! Making Christmas cookies and taking them to friends becomes an opportunity to connect, to share in celebration, to provide scripture on a card for contemplation! Our meeting over breakfast this morning was an important part of preparation for the coming weeks, so that we could set our hearts and then plan our days accordingly. Our Advent devotional listening to Handel’s Messiah invites us to contemplate the life of Christ as we sip eggnog together on the couch (connection). The kids are preparing Christmas songs on the piano, and we’ve been memorizing Mary’s Magnificat, providing contemplative and celebratory riches to share with friends and family—some in person, and some virtually. Even activities like hiking and cleaning and reading and playing board games and finishing up a few random projects take on fresh new color when we consider how they work toward the intentions we have stated.

As we’ve thought over our list today, we’ve also realized that each of these intentions are a part of our devotion to Jesus during this season. We are celebrating the birth of Christ, seeking to stay connected to Him in prayer and in the Word, contemplating what it means for God to become man, thankful for the peace that comes because our sins are forgiven in Jesus. And we are preparing our hearts to welcome the new born King—as a reenactment of history but also as a foretaste of things to come. The King will come again, and we must be prepared to receive Him.

May every heart prepare Him room…

Merry Christmas!

What are your intentions for your holiday season? What kind of atmosphere are you aiming to cultivate?

Goodbye, Grinch Mama

13 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by in Home and Family

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

There’s this thing that happens when you read a story out loud to your kids. It hits you in a different way than it ever would had you been reading quietly to yourself.

Sometimes the blow is a rush of emotions that makes you tear-up against your wishes. And sometimes the blow comes with the stinging pain of conviction.

Take, for example, a recent Christmas read-aloud.

Grinch book dr. seuss christmas

Staring down from his cave with a sour, Grinchy frown,
At the warm lighted windows below in their town.

…he growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming,
“I MUST find some way to stop Christmas from coming!”
For Tomorrow, he knew, all the Who girls and boys,
Would wake bright and early. They’d rush for their toys!
And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the Noise!
Noise! Noise! Noise!
That’s one thing he hated! The NOISE!
NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!

I have to admit, I can relate.

There’s something about December that seems to stir my children up to a level of hyper-activity unknown the rest of the year. Maybe it’s the sugar. Maybe it’s the seasonal excitement. Maybe it’s the lack of sunshine … or a lack of training.

Whatever the cause, I recently found myself growling and nervously drumming, eager to squash the noise, noise, noise from my boys, boys, boys at our homeschool group’s recent visit to the local nursing home.

We come to play instruments, we come to spread cheer,
We come to sing hymns to the folks gathered here. 

Like the Whos down in Whoville, we’re a jovial lot,
But the Grinch Mama among us most certainly is not. 

Her children are happy but she can’t rejoice
Because of their bouncing, their climbing, their noise.

goodbye grinch mama christmas

It’s easy to characterize my children’s behavior as “horrible” when they have been nothing but jovial, albeit a bit careless and wild. It’s the careless and wild part that I know needs wise attention and careful training in the long run, but in the moment it gets my evil eye and sharp repremand, throwing gentleness and patience to the wind.

All I lack is green fur to adorn my furrowed brow.

I’m not against correcting children in public, mind you, but what really needed correcting in this case was my attitude.

Maybe I should just go get the T-shirt, because that is apparently a thing.

Let’s hold that thought.

While it may be hip and humorous right now to wear our worst attitudes on our sleeves, or even boldly screenprinted on the front of our shirts, these tendencies we (cough, cough, I) have toward grumpiness, selfishness, and stinginess are not acceptable. Let’s call it like it is: sin. That may sound harsh, but it’s actually quite hopeful.

But before we get there we have to recognize that mere authenticity isn’t a virtue. We have to bring Truth to bear on the mess in which we find ourselves. This is why the Scriptures are compared to a mirror–God’s Truth shows us what’s in our hearts (and more imporantly, what’s in His) so that we can, by His grace and in the power of His Spirit, deal with it.

No Mama I’ve ever met finds a rat in her kitchen and decides to make a comfortable bed for it on the counter. Eeew.

If we pursue authenticity as a “righteous” end in itself we risk becoming people who glory in our shame on principle–as though the right response to a bad attitude is to give it a pat on the back. Instead we must recognize that being honest with ourselves is just an initial step toward repentance and growth in Christ.

Acknowledging there’s a rat in the kitchen is just an initial step to removing it and disinfecting.

If we are honest about who we are, Grinch and all, and meet that honesty with the Truth, then we can have hope of both forgiveness for sin and strength for the fight. Then we can know not just ourselves in our futility and weakness, but God in His sovereignty and strength.

This is why I’m saying, “Goodbye, Grinch Mama,” even if I have to say it daily (or perhaps on the hour). She may be at times an accurate depiction of my selfish heart, but she isn’t welcome to stick around. By the grace of God, she’s shown the door as I seek the Lord to produce the fruit of His Spirit in her place.

It’s time to put off the Grumpy T-shirts and put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

The Grinch in our picture book comes to see that Christmas isn’t about all the materialistic things he had taken away from the Whos. The joy and celebration still comes despite his efforts to the contrary.

“Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

His small heart grows three times bigger as a result, and yet, somehow I don’t think it works quite that way for me. My problem isn’t the size of my heart, it’s the content and focus.

Dr. Seuss was on to something, but heart change, perhaps, means a little bit more.

I’d like to say goodbye to her once and for all, that Grinch, but I know it’s a day-by-day, moment-by-noisy-moment repentance and God-oriented faithfulness I need.

The children kept bouncing, and scolding she gave them
‘Til she saw that her anger indeed woud not save them

‘Twas grace that enveloped her more than the sound
Of jubilant voices and greetings all ’round

Grace that proved greater than sin or her goal
Of well-behaved children and a sense of control

She yet could not muster a match for their glee
But a heart now contrite was a sight for to see

“Merry Christmas,” she offered, remembering the One
Who loved a Grinch Mama by sending God’s Son.

 

These boys… So much joy, so much hustle and bustle, so much noise. It’s the way of children.

This time of year… So much joy, so much hustle and bustle, so much noise. It’s the way of celebration.

Do I make room for such as these? As we welcome the Lord Jesus as a child, am I welcoming my children in His name? Do I make room for the celebration of the Lord, be it a bit more rowdy at times than solemn?

I can’t hold on to my Grinch Mama and answer positively. She’s got to go.

The Word Became Flesh, Part Three

23 Friday Dec 2016

Posted by in Living Faith

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

This is the final post in a series on the Incarnation with meditations from John chapter one.  Read the rest of the series here:  Intro, Part One, Part Two. 

It’s interesting to think that if there is a personal God who is jealous for our worship, and if Jesus is anything less than God, we Christians are in a world of hurt for worshiping Him as God.  And yet, if His claims are true–if Jesus really is Emmanuel, God with us, then we are equally as bad off if we reject Him in favor of worshiping only the Father, as the Jews of Jesus’ day were inclined to do.

He came to His own and His own did not receive Him.

To worship a mere man is preposterous.  Indeed it is treasonous. And to bow down before a tiny baby as the magi did is laughable.

Unless somehow God becomes a man.  Unless somehow that baby was more than just a baby.

But if we stop to think about the incarnation, and if we’re honest with ourselves, it’s about the most unthinkable thing, isn’t it?  The only way we can reckon it even being possible is to say that “with God all things are possible” and that “He does whatever He pleases”.

So often people seem to meditate on the fact that God would become a baby.  We’re reminded of the smallness of His stature, the utter dependence upon His mother, the poverty of His earthly family.

But the marvel of the incarnation is not so much in the tininess of the Infant nor in the lowliness of His socioeconomic status, as consequential as these may seem to us, but rather that He would become human at all.

Would we lose our wonder if He had indeed walked upon the scene as a fully-grown, handsome, rich, powerful ruler?  Those earthly things might impress us, but they don’t impress God.  The gap between the rich and poor, the greatest and the weakest of our world as it is applied to the birth of Christ is a rather silly consideration in light of the infinite gap between the majesty, sufficiency, and immensity of our Creator and mankind’s collective vulgarity, dependence, and feeble littleness.

His humility and condescension would have been on display even if He had come as the most impressive of men, simply for having clothed Himself with flesh and blood.

But we are a bit dense and our values quite backwards, so in keeping with the lowliness of becoming like us, He showed us that the Mighty One of heaven needed nothing of earthly riches, power, or glory.  He was content to empty Himself of the heavenly riches, power, and glory so that He might be like those He came to save.

We see in Jesus, the Word of God, all the perfections of character that are in God Himself; we see what it means to be Emmanuel, God with us.  And we see what it means to be a truly great human being–in the only human life with which God is well pleased.  His is a greatness so far beyond our reach that in the light of the incarnation and the life of Jesus Christ on earth, we see our desperate need for God to enter into our dark mess in order to pull us out of it.

The people who walk in darkness will see a great light.  Isaiah 9:2

In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name. 

And so He came.  The glory, the humility of the incarnation is not so much that Jesus was born small and poor, but that He was born into our world at all.

And so we are invited to come.  And see.  And receive.  And worship this One to whom not only the wise men but also the angels of heaven bow down.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. 

Merry Christmas.

The Word Became Flesh, Part Two

22 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in Living Faith

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

This is Part Two in a series of meditations on the incarnation from John chapter one.  If you are new to the series, check out the Intro and Part One. 

How are we to know God?  Psalm 19 describes how the heavens are telling the glory of God, and how His word works in the heart of man.  Psalm 119 is another ode to the word of God, while Psalm 104 praises the Lord for His creation.  Romans 1 teaches that His invisible attributes are seen in all that He has made.

And yet…

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us…

The Creator now converges with creation.  The Infinite enters into finitude.  God becomes a man.

But unlike the written word of God which is powerful and yet not personal, and unlike the Creation which reveals aspects of God’s nature but is not inhabited by Him in any sort of pantheistic sense–no, unlike how God had revealed Himself in His word and in Creation, He has now revealed Himself in a Man–in whom all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form (Colossians 2:9).  This cosmic intertwining of the spiritual with the material, the eternal with the temporal, is the chief way in which God has chosen to reveal Himself.

“He’s a person not a plan,” Michael Card reminds us.  Jesus isn’t just a ticket into heaven.  He’s the reason you want to be there, the One who created you, the One with whom your soul, if awakened, longs to be.

Jesus isn’t just a means to an end, but He is Himself the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega.

How does this impact the way we view that Babe in the manger, so seemingly small, so apparently needy?

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us…

Have you caught your breath yet?

More tomorrow…

Part Three

The Word Became Flesh, Part One

21 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by in Living Faith

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

This is Part One in a Series of meditations on the incarnation from John chapter one.  If you missed the intro post, you can find it here. 

Jesus is the Word of God.  I’ve been meditating on John chapter one for a while now (months, actually), and I can’t get passed this description.

Words are essential to clear communication.  But written words alone can’t always give us a completely accurate picture.  Ever sent an email that was completely misinterpreted by someone because your tone and inflection was taken in a totally unintended way?

In Jesus we have a picture of what God is like and who He is–in words, in deeds, in emotion, everything.  We don’t exactly have a visual because we are those who believe without having actually seen Him (1 Peter 1:8, John 20:29).  (Cheesy nativity scene pictures admittedly don’t help, but alas I have succumbed.)  Nothing seen can truly define the unseen God anyway.  Maybe that’s why the bible didn’t come complete with an inspired painting of the Lord.

Still, in Jesus Christ, we have the ultimate representation, the ultimate communication about God.

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.  Hebrews 1:1-3

This Word was not only spoken or written, but it was translated into real, live humanity.  To be seen.  To be touched.  To be felt.  To be heard.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.  John 1:14

But more than a mere representation, more than just a communication, the scripture demonstrates that this Word has been around since the beginning.  This Word was with God.  This Word was God.  Emmanuel, God with us, isn’t just a platitude or a nice meaning for a nice person’s name.  It describes the very essence of the incarnation itself.

It tells us who Jesus is.

More to come tomorrow.  But for now, I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Have you ever longed for God to show Himself to you?  Second Corinthians 4:6 says “For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” How does this compare with the description of Jesus in John chapter one?  How does this meet our longing, at times, to see God? 

Part Two   Part Three

The Word Became Flesh: A Short Series of Meditations on the Incarnation from John Chapter One

20 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by in Living Faith

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

The opening of the Gospel of John is a grand invitation to “come and see” who this Jesus, this “Word” and “Light” and “Son of God”, is.  The first sentences to leave the apostle’s pen are some of the most poetic and yet absolute statements about Christ in all of scripture:

In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things came into being through Him,

and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

Three verses, six strong assertions.  They are foundational statements–not merely about this man Jesus, but also about the nature of God Himself and the relationship of Jesus to all of Creation.

This isn’t a passage to gloss over.  It is rich with grandeur.  To simply nod and move on doesn’t seem right.  I have to weigh these statements because they are heavy.

Who is this Jesus?  Do I believe the things John is saying about Him?  Do I also accept the testimony of John the Baptist that “this is the Son of God, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”?

The apostle John says that “His own did not receive Him.”  Jesus warns in the Sermon on the Mount that few actually believe and follow Him.  And so I have to ask myself these questions and not rush past them.  I have to take time to ponder, to let it all sink in.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.  (John 1:12-13)

So the invitation is to come and see–and believe.  Come and see–and become a child of God.  Come and see–and receive grace upon grace.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.  (John 1:14)

I invite you to join me in meditating on the incarnation over the next few days leading up to Christmas.  Let us sit for a while in John chapter one as we prepare to welcome and celebrate the One who has come and is coming again.  

Part One   Part Two   Part Three

Great Joy

07 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by in Living Faith

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

This is a journal entry from a few weeks ago that seemed appropriate given the theme of joy that characterizes the Advent and Christmas season (or the painful lack of joy some suffer more acutely at this time of year).  I hope that this will encourage and strengthen your heart as it has mine.

Creative Joy

There’s a GK Chesterton quote I have written in my home management binder that got me thinking the other day…

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.  But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.  It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening ‘Do it again’ to the moon.  It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them.  It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

In Genesis we read that God created everything.  And He said it was good.

As humans we delight in our own creative works—how much more, then, does God?

If our greatest project to date is broken or corrupted, if our best artwork goes unappreciated, we may lose heart, but even though God’s good creation has been broken and corrupted by sin and unappreciated by His creatures, He does not lose heart.  He is being creative still in working all things together according to His will and pleasure.  Like a master chess player takes great joy and delight in taking whatever move his opponent makes and using it to his advantage.  Or how a composer uses all the instruments, notes, dynamics, and dissonance to make a beautiful piece of music.  Contrary to how I might imagine Him at times, God has great joy!  He isn’t some brooding but somehow benevolent grandpa in the sky.  He is a divine, cosmic orchestrator, enjoying and delighting in His own work!

Contagious Joy

Psalm 16 ends with a rather exuberant declaration:

In Your presence is fullness of joy;

In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.

At one time in my life I read this verse and thought that the joy to be found in God’s presence was in the heart of the creature delighting in God, but my view was strained because while I had imagined that those who are in God’s presence must somehow be moved to great joy, I still imagined God Himself as somehow still quite austere, even stoic and grave.  But that is not how the scriptures paint Him.  He is holy and righteous.  But He is also love and peace and delight.

If the believer’s love to God is made possible because He first loved us (1 John 4:19), and because He Himself IS love (v. 16), then it seems quite plausible that our joy and delight in Him stems from His own joy and delight in Himself and in His works.

If joy and laughter are contagious, as I am told, then our joy in the presence of God need not be somehow mustered up within us—we need only to see Him as He is, and then we will be like Him (1 John 3:1-3).

As for this side of eternity, where we do not currently see the Lord face to face, we have this promise from Jesus in John 17:  “these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves.”  He has given us His word for our joy in this life—not merely as a tool so that we can conjure up our own joy, but so that we would have His joy made full in us.

All of these meditations brought this hymn to mind.  I particularly like the arrangement found here.

Thou lovely Source of true delight,
Whom I unseen adore;
Unveil Thy beauties to my sight,
That I may love Thee more.

Thy glory o’er creation shines;
But in Thy sacred Word,
I read in fairer, brighter lines,
My bleeding, dying Lord.

’Tis here, whene’er my comforts droop,
And sins and sorrows rise,
Thy love with cheerful beams of hope,
My fainting heart supplies.

Jesus, my Lord, my Life, my Light,
O come with blissful ray;
Break radiant through the shades of night,
And chase my fears away.

Then shall my soul with rapture trace
The wonders of Thy love;
But the full glories of Thy face
Are only known above.

Continual Joy

God is not merely unmoved or unsurprised when things on earth seem chaotic, upended, or just plain bad.  Our blessed God is joyfully working out His plans through it all.  He is delighting in His children, His creation; and He rejoices when a wayward one comes home to Him through faith and repentance (Luke 15:7).  Though God hates and grieves our sin, and though He sympathizes with our weaknesses and even weeps with those who are broken, no tragedy on earth will steal away His joy—nor, by extension, our joy if it is rooted in Him.

As you hold fast to your faith in Christ, through this season and the years to come, may you serve Him with gladness, awaiting with expectation the day when you hear, “Well done…enter into the joy of your master.” (Matthew 25:21)

Rejoice!  And be glad!

These are my own meditations and not meant as a thorough treatment of this subject.  If you want a much better biblical analysis of this topic (seriously, so much better), check out this article at Bible.org:  The Joy of God.  I found this article as I was getting ready to post my own and loved it!