Christmas Thoughts

I am discovering something. Christmas is a time for stirring things up.

When we pulled out all the decorations on Saturday, that meant taking the current knicknacks down to replace them with Christmas stuff. So, after I pulled it all off, I had no choice but to dust. (Not my favorite thing to do!) I also moved quite a bit of stuff around, causing little nooks and crannies that normally get ignored to have to be attended to. In some ways this is a good thing, but in other ways it just feels like more work. It is much easier to just leave things the way they are, letting the dust settle and the cobwebs form. Nobody sees them anyway, right?

The same thing happened with my addresses. I have spent the last several days addressing Christmas cards-- a few here and there as I get a moment to do so-- and am constantly thinking of someone whose address I don't have or running across the name of someone who has moved over the past year. I have a sticky note filled with addresses I need to update or find! And so, I have inadvertantly created yet another chore for myself. More work, more work, more work.

All of this got me thinking about my spiritual life. How Christmas is a time to stir things up there too. As another year winds down and the focus of my days polarizes on the baby in the manger, I find myself moving things around, unearthing things I would just as soon have left covered up, or lost. I find that the things I have let go of or pushed to the back of my mind are being brought to the forefront as I confess to that baby who grew up to pay the price for my salvation that I fall far short of His glory. And then I ask Him to help me. Help me see Him more clearly. Help me clear out the cobwebs and blow off the dust that has collected on a heart that longs to serve Him more effectively. Not because it will make me any more worthy. But because it is all I have to offer Him. And I know He can take my offerings and make them enough.

And so, as you scurry around this season, crossing those to-do's off your list, I pray that you will be reminded of Him. That you will find Him when you seek Him with all of your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13) That you will allow Him to move things around in your life, exposing the things you have hidden away and clearing out the things that need to go. That you will allow Him to replace things that are out of date and add whatever He sees fit to add. Not because He wants to create more for you to do, but because He wants to stretch you and shape you. I pray that in all of this, you will find that He has created in you a beautiful dwelling-- a heart that is fit for the King.