The holidays are upon us. If your household is anything like mine, a Christmas tree will soon appear, as well as eggnog, a manger scene, all accompanied by continual Christmas music and movies.
Signs of the holidays are all around us. There’s something etched into American society as a whole that reveres — and commercializes — this time of year.
For Christians, holidays like Christmas are our reminder that God sent His one and only Son to Earth to save sinners like us.
Time to refocus
Amid this special time, however, our picturesque, Hallmark-like notions of how the holidays ought to be are challenged. For you, it may be strained relationships or finances that could make the holidays lose their glow this year. It could be a health issue, or the very real grief of someone missing who has passed away, that is bringing you down.
It has been said that disappointment can be defined as the distance between your expectations of how things should go and how they are actually going (or at least how we perceive things to be going). There is something about the holidays that brings this out like no other time.
Amid disappointment during the holidays, what can Christians do? From God’s Word, we are reminded that we must dwell, not on only our problems, but look to Jesus, who suffered so much for each one of us (Hebrews 12:2).
We must also remind ourselves that God can use our pain for His glory. As C.S. Lewis once said, “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists on being attended to. God whispers to us in pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains.”
At the holidays, we can refocus on Jesus. As Lewis also said, “(We) need Christ, not something that resembles Him.”
The ’empty’ box
We all know that, as His followers. But living it out can be much harder. David Jeremiah once related this holiday story that illustrates:
Some time ago, a father punished his three-year-old for wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper. Money was tight, and he became infuriated when the child tried to decorate a box to put under the tree. Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift to her father the next morning and said, “This is for you, Daddy.” He was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, but his anger flared again when he found that the box was empty.
He yelled at her, “Don’t you know that when you give someone a present, there’s supposed to be something inside of it?”
The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and said, “Oh, Daddy, it’s not empty. I blew kisses into the box. All for you, Daddy.”
The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little girl and begged for forgiveness. He kept that gold box by his bed for years. Whenever he was discouraged, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who put it there.
Sometimes our attitudes during the holidays are a little like that father upset at the empty box. Life has failed us, we say. The Lord has let us down, we are tempted to think.
Hope for the holidays
But whenever a thought like that comes, be reminded of the empty tomb. Not just an empty cave. But the very place where our dear Savior Jesus who loves us gloriously rose from the dead, as He now sits in Heaven interceding for us continually.
If your heart loses hope this year, be encouraged. In Jesus, you always have hope for the holidays.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Brian Hobbs, editor of the Baptist Messenger.
