THE CHRISTMAS CHALLENGE
Christmas is in the air: the stores are packed, the media is buzzing, and UPS trucks are running! It’s no wonder that in the midst of preparing to celebrate Jesus’ birth we can get so busy and frantic that we forget all about Him. Even church feels busy with kids’ plays, cantatas, live nativity scenes and children’s parties. Cookies need baked, trees need decorated and presents need wrapped.
Where is the “peace on Earth, goodwill to men?” And even if we find it, how can we make room for it amidst the season’s demands? It stands to reason that in order to make more time for Jesus, we need to cut things from our schedule but this can seem just about as doable as starting a diet amidst holiday baking. What if we took a more indirect route to subtracting the things that are getting in the way of our peace, the things that are keeping us from having the Christmas we really want, deep in our soul?
Ann Voskamp describes this Christmas soul-cry so beautifully in her thought-provoking advent devotional, The Greatest Gift: “I don’t want a Christmas you can buy. I don’t want a Christmas you can make. What I want is a Christmas you can hold. A Christmas that holds me, remakes me, revives me. I want a Christmas that whispers, Jesus.”
How do we get that? Here are three ways we can start:
- By adding….more frequent times with the Christ child, the namesake of the holiday of endless activity. I have been participating in a small group study entitled, “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality” by Peter Scazzero: http://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/about/pete-scazzero/. He impresses the need for more frequent, rather than longer, interactions with God in a day. He states, “God invites us to grab on to his rope in the blizzard of life. He seeks to lead us back home to him” (Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, 172).
- By shifting…our focus. The closer you get to one object, the more you lose sight of the big picture. Any holiday tradition, no matter how lovely, has the potential to consume us. As we are in the midst of creating fun for our friends and family, we should check our focus by asking the following questions: What are my goals for doing this activity? Is this the best way I can accomplish these goals? Am I staying true to these goals? For example, if I invite my children into a fun cookie baking day, yet make the day about getting a perfect cookie product, I’ve shifted my focus off of my loved ones and onto cookies!
- By simplifying…our day to day. A little planning can go a long way around the holidays to simplify life. Maybe we do some online shopping to avoid crowds or choose a simpler meal to prepare. Maybe we say no to a party in order to stay home with our family. Thanks to social media, the internet and Pinterest, there are endless suggestions of how to improve the way we do life, but maybe we don’t need improved! Maybe we just need to slow down and simplify what we do so we can enjoy who we are.
In order to keep these three things in mind, I’ve created a Christmas Challenge for myself and I hope you will join me. Perhaps, through our indirect route, we can find our way to the Christmas we really want; the Christmas God wants to give us.
THE CHRISTMAS CHALLENGE
- I commit to increasing my interactions with God from today through January 1st. I will meet with God ____________ times each day. (If you don’t spend any time with God, add in some time in the morning, over lunch, or before bed. If you spend some time in the morning, add a few minutes in the evening as well. The goal is to increase frequency, not duration.)
- I commit to asking myself the following questions: What are my goals for doing this activity? Is this the best way I can accomplish these goals? Am I staying true to these goals?
- I commit to do what I can to slow down and simplify what I do so I can enjoy who I am and who others are.
Dear God, please reclaim Christmas for me. Please help me to be intentional about spending time with you and creating margin in my life — margin to take in the beauty you’ve surrounded me with; margin to speak something kind into someone else’s day; margin to be quiet and enjoy this season. Please show yourself to me this holiday season in a new way. Please give me a Christmas that whispers “Jesus.”
