Christmas All Year Round
The other day, I put on a YouTube video of a fireplace playing instrumental Christmas music. Why? Because I felt overwhelmed by the busyness of the season… and I don’t have a real fireplace in my home so, making a fire without one would be, well, awkward!
Anyway, I put it on because I wanted to slow down. Life felt like it was moving too fast.
You see, I have a “Martha” personality (Luke 10:38-42). It’s easier for me to do than it is to be.
I struggle with being present. I haven’t figured out yet whether this is due to my personality or learned behavior, but for whatever reason, no matter where I am physically, I’m often somewhere else mentally. I’m rarely still. Even if my body is at rest, my mind usually isn’t. As a result I often feel like life is moving too fast.
That’s why, out of all the names for God found in Scripture, I find “Emmanuel” the most comforting.
Despite the truth that God is with us—expressed in the name Emmanuel (Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23)—I often move through life without holding on to the Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace found in Christ. The name Emmanuel comforts me because I so deeply desire these traits to accompany me through life’s ups and downs.
Yet, it’s a truth that is hard for me to grasp. The ins and outs of life often make me forget (at least temporarily) that the Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace of Christ remain with me, even when life doesn’t go as I planned. In essence… I forget.
Last week marked the 11th anniversary of our son’s stay in the NICU. When my wife and I talk about it, she can recall the feelings and emotions as if it happened yesterday. For me, though, it feels distant, almost like it happened to someone else in a movie.
This also happens in my relationship with God. No matter how He shows up in my life, the memory of His goodness fades over time. Eventually, I stop living in the reality of His faithfulness.
We see this same tendency in the nation of Israel in the book of Exodus. The people forget.
In Exodus 2:23-25, we read:
“During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.”
To summarize the next several chapters, God provides freedom from slavery in Egypt through extraordinary demonstrations of His power. He guides them (Exodus 13:21-22) and provides for them in the wilderness (Exodus 15-17).
Their response? They grumble and complain (Exodus 16:2-12):
“In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.’”
Not only that, but when Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving instructions from God, the people decided he had been gone “too long.” They assumed God had abandoned them and made a golden calf to worship instead (Exodus 32).
They cried out to God for help. He delivered them. But the challenges of life blinded them to His goodness. When life didn’t meet their expectations, they forgot.
The hymn “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” captures this reality in the line:
“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.”
This leads me to ask: Is your relationship with God transactional or relational?
Here’s why this matters: If it’s transactional, you’re likely to have a “What have you done for me lately?” mentality. In other words, you’ll only remember God’s goodness as long as you can recall the last time He gave you what you wanted. Temporary circumstances will overshadow eternal truths found in Scripture.
If it’s relational, however, even though we may wrestle with idolatry in our hearts because of our sin nature, we won’t have to look far to find God’s goodness. That’s because we are resting in it daily.
This is what John 15 calls abiding—resting in the presence of God moment by moment.
If we want Christmas to become more than just an event we celebrate, if we want it to be a truth we carry with us throughout the year, we must abide in God’s goodness.
If we want to hold on to the Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace in Christ that we talk about at Christmas, no matter the situation, we need to stay tethered to Him.
As a friend of mine once said, “The seed never stops needing the soil.”
One of my favorite lines from Come Thou Fount expresses this beautifully:
“Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee.”
A fetter is a restraint. It refers to shackles placed around a prisoner’s ankles—it’s hard to get very far, very quickly, when your feet are tied together. Abiding in God’s goodness is what keeps our hearts from wandering. It’s what keeps us tethered to the Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace we celebrate at Christmas.
Our hearts are prone to wander. It’s part of our human condition, whether it’s the fleshly desires in our hearts for success or recognition, or the drift that happens when we reduce our relationship with God to a transactional one, forgetting how He has shown up in our lives.
However, we can “carry the spirit of Christmas” with us all year long if we make it a practice to abide in God’s goodness. Then the Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace we so desperately crave won’t feel so far away.
Adam