So, once again it's that time of year. For Christians the time when we celebrate the coming of our Savior as a baby to die for our sins. For the rest of the world, it's a time to celebrate with gift giving and candy canes, trees and lights, Santa and reindeer. Funny, isn't it, everyone wants to complain about Jesus but everyone wants to get in on His birthday too! Anyway, that's not my point.
I will admit, I love to Christmas shop, I love to buy gifts, I love to have a jam packed tree and have a wonderful shock and awe display on Christmas morning. So, in years past, we have somehow managed to pack the tree beyond it's limits and depleted every resource we have to do so. This year, we don't have those resources. And my heart has been heavy as I think of all the extra space under the tree. I have been praying and asking God to help me, show me how to do this, how do I make this Christmas special, how do we give gifts, how do we make it memorable? I thought, well, let's cut back, duh, but what does that mean? So I said, how about 5 gifts each and we'll have each gift fall under a theme, like clothing - and then I got excited because I remembered how Jesus was wrapped in swaddling cloths and I thought, boy, maybe I could even make these 5 gifts significant and spiritual too! But, I couldn't figure out how to tie the rest of the themes into Jesus. So, back to square one and the frantic seeking of money. I continued to pray, God, there must be an answer!
We put up our tree after Thanksgiving and each year under the tree I put all of our fun little stuffed animals and whatnot. But this year I didn't want to do that. Instead I felt compelled to place the 3 boxes we have that represent the 3 gifts of the Magi under the tree, that was all. (You can probably see where this is heading, but I didn't get it.)
So, last night I got an e-mail from Heritage Builders, the headline was something about how many gifts should you give your kids. Woo-hoo! I'd found my answer, they were going to give me the key I was looking for. Funny thing is, God already gave it to me, but He was kind of subtle, so I guess He decided to get a little more obvious for me, He's such a good God.
Reading the e-mail it sounded just like everything I had been saying - the gifts, the overload, the let down, the stress. Then the answer came. Jesus was given 3 gifts - gold, frankincense and myrrh, why not give 3 gifts as well - one to represent the gold given to Jesus - something special. One to represent the frankincense - something to aid our spiritual growth (frankincense was used in religious ceremonies), and one to represent myrrh - something practical (it was a spice used in burial, a very practical gift for someone who came to die, don't you think?) So there it was, I looked at our beautiful tree with the 3 boxes underneath, the boxes now seemed to cry out to me (why this didn't happen before, I'm not quite sure, maybe because I just couldn't imagine Christmas without all the stuff).
The Christmas story is so simple, so beautiful, so why then does the season turn so complicated and chaotic? Shouldn't my family's Christmas look different than the world's Christmas? How can I keep my children really focused on why we celebrate when there are "things" yelling for their attention? Isn't the best possible gift I could give my children a firm foundation on the things of God, not the things of the world?
I sit and I think of what Jesus' birth means to me. Yes, it means I get to receive Him as my Savior and spend eternity with Him in paradise, but it means so much more even in this moment. It means I can enter the throne room of grace boldly and climb on my Daddy's lap and have an intimate relationship with the God of the universe. It means I can have peace in the midst of uncertainty, I can have joy in the midst of hardship, I can have wisdom in the midst of confusion. I live a blessed life. Maybe not in the way the world measures blessing, but I wouldn't trade my version of blessed for theirs any day. And I am blessed because of a baby born to die for me.
So I challenge you - to make this Christmas really about Jesus and giving our kids the greatest gift, let's not just tell our kids over and over,"it's not about the presents, it's about Jesus' birthday", and then we give them hundreds of dollars in gifts... don't you think that's a little contradictory?
My prayer is that when the tree comes down and the decorations are put away and the gifts are forgotten about, I will have given my children a greater understanding of our King and His love for us, and that is a gift they will carry throughout their lives and never forget.
