Christmas Traditions

Our family doesn’t have a lot of formal Christmas traditions.  No readings, no singing, nothing like that.  We go to our church Christmas eve candlelight service where we sing Christmas carols and greet our friends.  I usually ski on Christmas eve, getting home just in time for the service.  Maybe skiing is one of my traditions!  Christmas Day we get up later than many, open gifts and have a Christmas dinner with family and friends.  Sometimes we’re at our home, sometimes at my sister’s home.  We try to have a relaxing day, except for Sandra who is often cooking. 

I think that Christmas is supposed to be relaxing.  It should be fun.  After all, it’s a birthday party and you can’t celebrate a birthday without fun and excitement and joy and laughing.  We remember Jesus’ birth, and God’s love and mercy in sending His Son to us.  Can you imagine how exciting it must have been for the shepherds who heard the angel choir?  For Mary and Joseph trying to comprehend what was happening?

We can’t truly celebrate Jesus’ birth if we don’t also remember that God gave His Son to die for us, to die in our place as a sacrifice for our sins.  That’s what Christmas is all about.  A little baby, God’s own Son, born to a virgin, come to reconcile us to God.  Jesus was the most incredible Christmas Gift of all, offered to us by God Himself.  What sorrow that so many people refuse the gift of salvation God offers to them.  Instead of peace with God and eternity with Jesus in heaven, so many reject him and face an eternity of unimaginable torment separated from God.  This Christmas, make sure you truly have asked Jesus to forgive you for your disobedience to God and ask Him into your life as your Saviour. 

May your Christmas truly be a wonderful one of Peace and Joy.

The Christmas Rush

It is so hard to celebrate a nice, peaceful Christmas.  Everything seems to get so rushed in December.  All the friends who haven’t seen you in months suddenly want to see you before Christmas.  There are Christmas parties and more Christmas parties that we just have to attend.  Dinner’s, luncheons, the list seems endless.  We shop, we visit, we send cards which of course have to have nice long letters included in them.  We’re seemingly busy all day, every day, morning to late at night.  There’s nothing wrong with any of these Christmas celebrations or activities, but together they tend to gang up on us and steal the peace and wonder of Christmas.

Stop.  Stop everything for a couple of minutes.  Breathe deeply, smile, think about what Christmas is really all about.  Think about our Heavenly Father who sent His Son to earth to atone for our sins.  Think about the wonder of the birth of Jesus to a virgin, Mary, a young teen who suddenly found herself the mother of the Messiah.  Think about the stable, the animals, the shepherds in the fields tending their sheep, the angels and the birth of our Saviour.  It all happened.  It’s real.  And today we can know the Saviour.  We can have a personal relationship with Jesus.  Each of us is offered the opportunity to truly know God’s love and forgiveness.  That’s what Christmas is really all about. 

Giving Thanks

Many countries around the world have harvest festivals, but only two that I know of celebrate Thanksgiving Day.  Canada celebrates Thanksgiving in October, the United States in November.  It began as a day of thanksgiving to God for a good harvest and His provision of our needs.  I think that for most people in both Canada and the United States today, it is just another vacation day and opportunity to get together with friends and family.  For some of us though, it is still a day to thank God for all He has provided for us.

In Canada and the United States we have a great deal for which we can be thankful.  We have life.  We have family and friends.  We have all of our basic needs met and most of us have far more than just the bare necessities of life.  Even more important, we have the opportunity to know God.  The opportunity to truly know Him through a relationship with his Son Jesus.  Through that relationship with Jesus we can have peace and joy as we live here on earth and we will spend eternity with Jesus in heaven.  I can’t think of anything more exciting and for all those things I give thanks.

Overwhelmed

I receive dozens and dozens of e-mails every day, sometimes almost a hundred per day.  Some are work related, some are notes from friends, many are just things people think I may find amusing or interesting or beautiful and so pass on to me.  I watch the news each day on television and read news articles on the Internet.  And then there is Facebook, and everyone I know there.  Often I feel that it is all just too much.

I want to stay current on news, I want to know what is happening in the world and in the lives of my friends, but how much is too much?  Some days I feel like I am drowning in information.  All that information can overwhelm you and crowd out time for important things.  Important things like family, like friends, like time to read the Bible and time to talk with God.  How do we find a balance?  How do we find equilibrium in our life?  I think the best way is probably to start with Jesus first.  Talk with Him each day.  Study a bit of the Bible each day.  As we do those two things we can ask Jesus to order our life so that all the other seemingly urgent things don’t crowd in and push out the important things like time with family and friends.  And time to ourselves as well.

I want Jesus to be first and foremost in my life.  I know if that happens, everything else will fall into place.