Content at Christmas

What do you think about when you think of Christmas?  Since you are reading this devotional, your response will probably be Jesus.  You would be correct to have that as your first thought since He is the reason that we celebrate.  It is at Christmas that we celebrate God coming and taking on human flesh.  However, let’s go a bit more personal and ask the question again of what do you think about when you think of Christmas?

Perhaps your first thought goes to spending time together with family and friends.  Maybe your thoughts drift towards gathering for Christmas dinner.  Perhaps it is a family tradition of going out and looking at lights.  For some, it is about the presents.  

Sure, none of us want to admit it, but we can base how our Christmas was on the presents we receive or how the presents we give are received.  Think back to when you were a kid, and you would get up and head to the tree.  Early in life, it is just the excitement of getting presents.  However, if you are like me, as we get older, we tend to be more calculating.  We ask, how many gifts did I get?  Did I get what I asked for?  How many presents did my siblings get?  We begin to base our sense of love, acceptance, worth, and security on the gifts we receive or how the other person responds to receiving our gift.

Like most things, we will become disappointed with the gift receiving and giving over time.  It could be less gifts than last year or not a big enough gift.  It could be the other person didn’t ooh and ahh over the gift like we wanted, and both lead to us feeling discontent.  This feeling of discontentment can leave us feeling empty and bitter.  It can leave us feeling unloved, unaccepted, worthless, and insecure.

Fortunately, our love, acceptance, worth, and security are not based on the quantity or quality of the gifts we receive.  They are not based on how another person reacts or doesn’t react.  Our sense of love, acceptance, worth, and security are based entirely on who God is, what God did for us, and who God says we are.

Christmas is a time when God shows us how unconditionally loved, accepted, full of worth, and secure we are when He comes to earth to be born in a manger.  Jesus comes as the perfect gift to fix our sin problem and to provide our righteousness.  John the Baptist puts it this way, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).  

This season, let us turn our hearts to the source of our contentment.  Let us celebrate the greatest gift we could ever receive, Jesus, and not put our sense of okayness on the earthly presents.

Who are you at Christmas?

Christmas gatherings can be a time of joy and celebration.  They can be a time to reflect on the fond memories of the past or even to be thankful for the opportunity to make new memories.  Christmas gatherings can also be a difficult time.  Those same gatherings that for some are a time of joy and celebration, can be a time of pain.  For some, those gatherings bring up painful memories from the past.  They provide opportunities for the negative messages we received growing up to be brought back to us like a slap to the face.  When we are believing the lies of those false beliefs, it does not take much for shame to take hold of us and to seek to have us engage in a downward death cycle that seeks to separate us from Jesus and can be hard to overcome.

Shame, unlike guilt, speaks to our core identity.  Instead of acknowledging that we did something wrong, which is guilt, in shame, we believe that something is wrong with me.  Guilt speaks to our behavior while shame speaks to what we believe to be true about ourselves, our identity.  When we are experiencing shame, it begins a process that can lead to negative self-talk/thoughts, depression, and trying to find ways to cope with the negative belief or to strive to find ways to make us do things to feel better about ourselves.

Shame is also the fear of being exposed.  It is the fear of being exposed for whatever negative belief we are holding to.  Adam and Eve experienced this in the Garden.  After eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve had their eyes opened to what is right and wrong.  At that moment a sense of guilt for not listening to God was experienced.  However, instead of coming to God and admitting what they had done, Adam and Eve allowed their choice to speak to what they believed to be true about themselves, and the response was to hide themselves out of fear of being exposed.  Their attempt to cover their shame began with fig leaves.  It worked for a moment, until God came to the Garden. Shame continued its downward spiral and led Adam and Eve to try and hide behind bushes out of fear of being exposed before God.  

At Christmas gatherings, we are around those that shaped the messages we believe about ourselves - often these are the root of shame. These messages can be “I will never be good enough”, “I am unlovable”, “I am worthless”, “I am a disappointment”, “I am a failure”, “I am not strong enough”, etc.  None of us want to experience any of these.  When we are, we will find ways to try and deal with the painful emotions that come from these false beliefs.  Those coping strategies may seem to help us to feel better or numb the pain but never work for the long-term.

The solution for truly experiencing freedom from the false beliefs is Jesus.  That seems like the typical Sunday School answer, but it is true.  If we are going to stop believing something to be true, we must replace that belief with something else.  It is not as simple as just not believing it anymore.  To stop believing one thing, we must replace it with another.  Scripture says, “we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).  Paul says that we are to identify the lie, take it to Jesus, and replace it with what Jesus says to be true about us.  When we are believing ourselves to be unlovable, we identify that this is a lie and turn to Jesus and choose to believe that He loves us unconditionally.  When we are believing ourselves to be worthless, we identify the lie, and trust how much worth God places on us as Jesus came and died for us.  As we turn to Jesus for the truth about who we are, we will experience the life of freedom that He came to give us.  

Holiday Grief

For many, the holiday season is a time of gatherings of family and friends, joy, and celebration.  For others, it is a time of grief.  It is a time of painful memories.  Memories of family members or friends that are no longer here and the grief of looking across the table and seeing the chair they used to sit in.  Memories of relationships that are strained or broken to the point where they don’t gather or if they do, the emotional distance is so great that they might as well not be there.  Perhaps it is a more recent event such as a health crisis, financial issues, or relationship struggles.  For each of these, grief is a natural response for the pain and suffering you are experiencing.

Throughout the Bible, we see people grieving.  Abraham mourns when his wife Sarah dies in Genesis 23.  The nation of Israel grieves the death of Moses in Deuteronomy 34.  David grieves over the loss of his son in 2 Samuel 12.  Shortly after this, David grieves over his son Absalom turning away from him and even taking the throne from David.  In the New Testament, John 11 shares how Mary and her sister Martha grieve over the loss of their brother Lazarus.  Throughout the Bible, we see people grieving over the loss of loved ones, relationship issues, the desire for people to be saved, health issues, etc.  

At the center of all this grieving and in our own grief, is Jesus.  Hebrews 4 reminds us that we do not have some distant God but a High Priest that sympathizes with our weakness, our pain, our suffering, our grief.  He meets us in our sufferings and pain, and He can relate to us because He also knows what it is like to experience grief.  When we look at John 11 and the grieving of Mary and Martha, we also see Jesus enter the picture.  Jesus knew what He was going to do.  He knew He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead.  Jesus could have simply told Mary and Martha not to worry that it’s all okay.  However, we see Jesus grieve right alongside them.  In verse 35 we are told that “Jesus wept”.  The shortest verse in the Bible is one of those most impactful as it shows Jesus entering our grieving and grieving alongside of us.  Not only does Jesus understand our grief and grieve alongside us, but He also promises to be our strength when we feel overwhelmed (Psalm 73:36).  Jesus also gives us a promise in Revelation 21 that He will wipe away every tear from our eyes and there will be no more death or need for mourning because He is making all things new.  

Jesus invites those that are grieving to grieve.  He grieves alongside us.  He knows our pain.  He promises to be our strength when we can’t go on.  He also promises that one day, He will comfort us, and we will not need to grieve anymore.  

What are you grieving this holiday season? Take a moment and acknowledge the loss, the pain. As you acknowledge your felt reality, turn to Immanuel and welcome Him - allow Him to sit with you and feel the pain of loss with you. Know that He is with you, that He grieves with you. Let your heart know the joy of His presence.

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” Psalm 147:3 

“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” Psalm 73:26