Christmas comes but once a year.
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat.
Go, tell it on the mountain!
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
Joy to the world, the Lord is come.
How many song lyrics, poems or stories remind you of this Season of Hope, sometimes when we're months in front of or behind it? How often do words or phrases change our tune or outlook on the world around us? How powerful, the words we use, the words we hear, the words we read!
Those of us celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, know full well that Christmas is closer than we're ready for, just yet, as we're headlong and up to our eyeballs in preparation for our family celebrations. Those who celebrate simply, "Christmas" as a gift-giving observance, probably feel the same pull from family and social obligations, long lists of need-to-purchase gifts, baking, visiting, entertaining, and lack of rest.
When we look beyond the wrappings, peer past the decorations, focus away from the dazzle and the dollars, we have a very simple, poignant and melancholy... yes, melancholy ... remembrance of a baby boy's birth. Those of us who have given birth, or have held a newborn and known the joy and awe in the tiny form know a tad about the feelings Mary had as she cradled the newborn King.
God, our Heavenly Father, came to earth in the form of a helpless baby, born to poor, working class parents who had no hope of riches nor ever rise in rank in a class-oriented society. He came to give us a human example of Godly perfection. He came to show us that anyone could choose to do right and to believe whole-heartedly, as well as to give of his whole heart to everyone who needed even a glimmer of hope to go on in this weary world.
Jesus came to die. For a beautiful, glorious, grace-filled reason, but to die, nonetheless. Anyone who has a child or holds loved ones dear cannot fathom, cannot even try to imagine bringing that child into the world for the ultimate purpose of offering him as a sacrifice -- for everyone else on earth and everyone yet to be born. And the melancholy enters. No one pictures death in the face of a newborn, seeing the promise and potential there for future milestones, and comparing characteristics of family members in the small one's features. No one thinks of turning this child over to certain death ... having never done wrong himself. Yet, he came to live a godly example and ... to ... die.
He came for you. He came for me. He came for the family down the road whom you have never met. He came for taxi drivers, teachers, ditch diggers, doctors, world leaders, slaves, mothers, fathers, siblings, priests, mill workers, lawyers, tax collectors, businessmen, children and adults. He came for one and all, not just a few. He wants every one of us.
We need only give ourselves, and then watch and listen for the changes he makes within us, that help in making us new, help in making us more Christ-like.
We need only try with a mustard-seed-size faith -- if that's all we have to offer. We need only look to Him for guidance, for grace and for mercy. We will try and fail, we will persevere and suffer, we will work hard and glean little. We will continue on in this path of faith ... and find Him at the end, just as he was at the Beginning.
He came for you.
God bless you, and Merry Christmas!
Showing posts with label gifts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gifts. Show all posts
Ten Ways to Love: Give without Sparing
It's Christmas time as I hit the third on the list of Ten Ways to Love. One week until the day all of our Christmas giving hits the runway, unveiled for each recipient in a scattered havoc of boxes, bags, paper, ribbons and tags.
Give without sparing.
In tangible gift-giving, not sparing a cent or a thought or an opportunity happens without a lot of difficulty. Sure, we sometimes second-guess our purchases or choices or spending limits, because tangible is finite. The money we use has an end. Material goods go only so far.
To give without sparing in marriage, or in family relationships, or in friendship, has a very important, very intangible reckoning for us. We can't always see it coming from others (when it is) and others can't always see ours coming in their direction (when it is).
The Biblical focus of the lesson to Give without Sparing come from Proverbs 21:25-26 --
"The craving of a sluggard will be the death of him,
because his hands refuse to work.
All day long he craves for more,
but the righteous give without sparing."
Put this into the light of the day-to-day living of a husband and wife. It sounds a little strange, this "craving of a sluggard" angle from Solomon -- the wisest man who ever lived. Yet, when you view your husband, your children, your family, your friends as "needy" or "wanting" or as stated here, "craving," and you, the sole giver ... you martyr yourself. You become the judge of those you should love with all your heart, rather than suppose and assume and discipline toward the right. Your right.
Giving without sparing has nothing to do with gifts and mementos. It has nothing to do with greeting cards, pokes, pins or tweets. Status updates hold no importance when it comes to sparing nothing in love. Giving without sparing has everything to do with selflessness and putting oneself into a judgment-free zone. It means giving of yourself -- your time, your thought, your work, your energy, your sensitivity, your planning, your hopes, your tolerance, your acceptance, your prayers, your talents, your patience, your joy, and your heart to your God and your husband. Good things will filter down to your children from the top, and you will bless other family and friends with the peace and understanding you begin to develop through focusing on your Top Two.
To give, selflessly and fully, makes the greatest gift of all. Material possessions and the pull they have on our Want List will dwindle when our hearts fill, instead, with focused, purposeful acts of love.
Love is the only thing you get more of by giving it away. ~~Tom Wilson
Love. Let us give more of it!
Others in this series:
- Ten Ways to Love: An Introduction
- Ten Ways to Love: Answer without Arguing
- Ten Ways to Love: Enjoy without Complaint
- Ten Ways to Love: Give without Sparing
- Ten Ways to Love: Listen without Interrupting
- Ten Ways to Love: Share without Pretending
- Ten Ways to Love: Speak without Accusing
- Ten Ways to Love: Forgive without Punishing
- Ten Ways to Love: Pray without Ceasing
- Ten Ways to Love: Trust without Wavering
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