I’m confident that this season of joy is the most difficult season of all. If you are a family, blended family, or single parent family, you seem to never meet every expectation of your extended family, immediate family, or stepfamily. As much as we listen to White Christmas, Joy to the World or The Christmas Shoes, we seem to all be in the same race to please everybody.
There is also the little problem of combining Jack Frost nipping at your nose and everybody else nipping at your hide. While chatting with a good friend and a good man at church the other day I confessed that I love serving Sugar Hill Church as their Pastor/Shepherd, but not in the month of December. I’m not sure when it happens, but somewhere between Halloween and New Years Day, the expectations of a church or pastor are a bit overwhelming. I’ll bet that they are overwhelming to you as well.
Here are two ways to not get trapped in the expectation overload:
- Get this Christmas in Context. Whatever the world is peddling as the ideal and perfect Christmas – Don’t buy it! Jesus didn’t come to the stable in Bethlehem so we could have the perfect Christmas. He came to seek and to save lost folks – like us. He didn’t lay in a manger so we could have the perfect light show in our front yard. He came that we might have life abundant and life eternal. Keep that at the forefront of your celebration and watch how much fun Christmas can be.
- Reset your Purpose in this Life. Nowhere in the Beatitudes and Sermon on the Mount did Jesus offer this little tidbit…Blessed are the busy, for the will enjoy My birth that much more. It’s my job to guard my soul, my attitude and my time. You don’t have to surrender your heart and soul to the world to have a blessed Christmas. You don’t have to go into debt to please every child, parent or spouse. You just need to be fully present in the knowledge that Jesus has only one desire for you this Christmas. That one thing is that we LOVE HIM, HONOR HIM, SERVE HIM, and LOVE OTHERS. That is what He, the founder and CEO of Christmas wants. He wants YOU!
The ongoing challenge to create the perfect season is flawed in every way. You see, without loving HIM, serving HIM, honoring HIM and loving OTHERS, we might as well be celebrating Aunt Myrtle’s birthday. We all love Aunt Myrtle, but this is the season that we all stop and celebrate the LORD. Make it special without the expectation, fretfulness and Helter Skelter pace. I’ll promise you that Jesus has never asked us to drag our kids, family, and friends, through the season at Mach 2. He calls us to rest in HIM, hope in HIM and trust in HIM.
Be at Peace Friends,
Chuck
