It’s Christmas time! I am not sure my heart jumps for joy at the sound of that! Honestly, December alone can send me into a stirring pot of looking at the budget, the time I have to do “all the things” – all the while hearing my children’s wish lists that do not fit the budget. The stores are full of Christmas “Cheer”. It takes me a little time to get there. Please tell me I am not alone?
Christmas is such a sweet time to celebrate Jesus’ birthday and who He is, but somehow the “holiday” part of it all brings challenges to our schedules, our minds, our relationships, and our lives. Christmas can just be emotional. Whether it is a time of pure joy or deep pain, it is emotional.
I was reminded of a bittersweet truth recently as I was enjoying a stage that had an amazing forest of Christmas trees covered with snow. The Lord reminded me of this verse:
This wasn’t exactly the warm fuzzy verse your want to hear when you are trying to get into the holiday spirit! All of the sudden in my mind God inserted a mean prowling lion into my beautiful forest of Christmas trees. What in the world? Then I decided to listen and see what God was up to with this! I imagine as we walk through this holiday season with all the joys and challenges it brings us, we are likely to forget that there IS a prowling lion in the forest of our lives. This was God’s reminder to me that Satan is “prowling”. For us as women, his favorite place to prowl is our minds. If he can slowly and subtly give you thoughts that you accept as truth, then he begins to overtake God’s territory in you and your life. This would for sure be the “bitter” part of my tale.
Now for the sweet…following that experience, our Lord took me on a journey through verse after verse in His Word that talks about trusting Him. All of these verses talked about trusting Him with our minds, our lives, our children, our hearts, and our burdens. He promises that we will be blessed without worry when we trust in Him (Jer. 17: 7-8). He promises that He will put us on a straight path when we let our whole heart trust Him instead of our own understanding (Prov. 3:5-6). He promises to ready us to fight the enemy when we give Him authority over our thoughts (2 Cor. 10:5-6).
“Believing I trust God” and “acting like I trust Him” are two totally different things. To totally trust Him - we have to think and act in ways that reflect we have no control because we know who does and His ways are always better! We hold so tight to the idea that we want something to happen or something to stop happening in our lives, that we forget to hold tight to our Savior. In return, He can bless our dependence and confidence in Him. He knows your struggle. He knows your children. He knows your future spouse. He knows your pain. He knows YOU. Trust Him with ALL THINGS. Fall back into His arms knowing that He has already caught you!
I don’t know what you are facing this Christmas season, but I bet evaluating where you are in fully trusting God today in ALL THINGS wouldn’t be a bad idea. I will join you in this daily surrender as we walk through Christmas together. I pray that you can feel the holiday spirit that is found in our Savior. I’ll leave you with one more promise of hope:
HOPE HAS COME!
Merry Christmas to you!
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