It was a good Christmas. Lots of family time, good food and fellowship, memorable moments, and some fun gifts. We ended the day around a fire with good conversation and some expressions of exhaustion, even a couple saying “glad it’s over.” That’s kind of sad.
It seems to me we approach Christmas much as we do Christ. We can’t seem to accept either as a free gift. We have to make both a project. For Christmas, it’s like we are trying to recreate some ancient memory from our youth, or a scene from a favorite Christmas movie, maybe a picture from a magazine or a recipe from the Food Network. We exhaust ourselves for something that just needs to be treated for what it is, a free gift.
We do the same with Jesus. With our universal type A personalities, we believe that it is all about us and what we do. We make salvation into a project. And, like our Christmas fantasy, we doom ourselves to failure.
Next year we have another chance to just relax and enjoy the free gift of Christmas. With Christ, we don’t have to wait a year. We can decide today to accept Him as a gift and go about joyfully sharing Him with everyone we know. Or we can keep Him as a project.
It’s up to us.
Take the gift, be thankful, relax and be blessed.
Nick
Be the first to reply