The most spiritual thing you can do this Christmas
Imagine that it was your birthday. For weeks, folks around you have been making preparations. They’re decorating. Shopping. Sending invites. Buying gifts. Planning food. Playing music.
Gorgeous outfits are purchased. Songs are sung in advance of the great event. Family portraits are arranged in your honor, smiling groups carefully positioned in front of trees.
And then…it’s The Day. It’s your birthday! All over, everywhere, in every land and nation. Over the sea and here at home, starstruck citizens gather. They feast. They sing. They open gifts. They even read the story about your unlikely arrival.
And all the while, you, the Guest of Honor, sit, unnoticed, unsought. Just waiting.
You aren’t seeking the spotlight, or that place of honor, from an egotistical desire for recognition. You’re not looking to subjugate the partygoers; to turn them, every one, into indentured slaves. You don’t want performing robots. You’re not seeking, actually,their service. What you’re seeking (and you feel this so keenly as you sit there, alone) is…
Their love.
“I’m not seeking first your obedience.” That’s what Papa told this Curly-Headed Girl one, bright day out upon her swing. “I want your heart. For when I have your heart, I will have your obedience.”
Perhaps the most spiritual thing you can do today; quite possibly the greatest faith-filled choice you can make is to quietly, consciously, intentionally slip over to the Babe of the Manger, the carpenter’s son, Mary’s boy. To kneel for a moment (or an hour) in His presence. To allow your heart to quiet, to know that He is God.
That He is God, and He is good.
I now know the secret and the peace and the all-consuming joy of living IN HIM. Every day, at every moment. Sleeping or waking. Going out or coming in. Standing or sitting, working or resting, every part of my life, I live it in Him.
When I’m cooking the turkey, stringing lights. When I’m writing up cards, wrapping gifts. When I’m kissing The Cub or talking to his father, it is all done in His name, in the name of the One that the party’s really for
So on that divine note, “Let’s get this party started!”
Merry Christmas.