Seeking JOY at Christmas (Re-post from 2018)
I see you, Dear Striver, and I have something to tell you. I see you trying to slow down a busy mind. I see you attempting to pause, to breathe in more of the quickly passing days of the Christmas season. I see you and that quick shrug you give before you search for your smile inside.
I see the breath you take as you hustle kids out of the door. I see the question cross your face as you pile high the groceries at the check-out line and pray that you did your math correctly. I see you pulling up to the school to help out with one more Christmas project to somehow solidify that you’ve got this “mom thing” down. I see the shake of your head when something else didn’t go as planned and you’re attempting to shake it off. And I see your tear stained cheeks because sorrow or grief or loss or despair or depression or discontentment seem to find you more than JOY these days.
Lean in and let me whisper hope to your ear…quiet your mind for just a moment. Ask the Father for a Holy Quiet right now so that you might hear straight from His heart.
All of your striving will not lead you any closer to Him this Christmas. All of your trying to get it right will not lead you right to Him. All of your planning the “perfect Christmas” will not perfect your heart for Him. All of your hoping that things were different or wrestling with how things used to be will not bring you the gift you so desire. If contentment or peace or joy or the hope of a sincere smile is what you are longing for, there is only one place it can be found.
“You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:12)
To find what it is that you desire, you must allow yourself to be made low as He was made low when He came here for YOU.
See, Christ put on the smallness of flesh to be held in our arms so that He might fit into our hearts. He left the fullness of Heaven, that could not contain Him, in order to DWELL here with YOU so that He could be known by you. He made Himself low so that when we are at our lowest…He is in our midst.
“Seek and you shall find” (Matthew 7:7) is one of the simplest and most profound adventures we will ever attempt to live. To truly and humbly seek the ONE who is called by the name of Joy, Peace, Love, and Hope we must quit running after everything else.
“If you chase two rabbits you will not catch either one.”
If you are after anything but the sole pursuit of the Father you will be saddened by what you find, because you will not discover Him simply in the midst of a hustled pursuit of something else.
Plan the fun but seek to find a smile in the unraveling of manmade plans. Organize the party but find joy in whomever walks through the door. Decorate the tree and giggle at the jumbled ornaments placed by tiny hands. Allow the misadventures of life to lead you LOW towards Him who waits for us.
Get LOW this Christmas. Get under all of the expectation and quit striving to somehow rise above your expectation of self or someone else’s expectation of you. Allow yourself to be made low and accept the love He has for you at the bottom. Beneath your best, beneath the stress, beneath the chasing, beneath the striving, beneath the dissatisfaction…there is a baby lying low to set you free from all of the weight we so easily find ourselves under.
Let yourself be loved this Christmas by a baby born to wear our shame and bare our scars. Accept that YOU, ME, WE are HIS BELOVED.
Let yourself be loved and I dare to dream that you will find the JOY that we all so desperately seek at Christmas.
© Dani Hardy (December 10, 2018)
References:
“You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:12) (Holy Bible)
“Seek and you shall find” (Matthew 7:7) (Holy Bible)
“If you chase two rabbits you will not catch either one.” Romanian Proverb