Christmas Season

It’s easy this time of year to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of Christmas.   Actually, it’s easy to get wrapped up in life in general outside every day of the year.  It’s easy to set goals for ourselves and for our children.  We set goals financially, and academically and behaviorally.  There’s nothing wrong with wanting your life to look a certain way and nothing at all wrong with having ambition.  But sometimes I think our hoping and planning and dreaming gets in the way of what our focus should be.  We are guilty of being upside-down in our priorities.  Our focus should be on Christ first and on loving others second (Matthew 22:37-40).  My challenge this year is to think outside of ourselves and our own families and think of others.  All throughout the Gospels (ie. Matthew 9:36, Matthew 20:34 and Mark 1:41), we read that Jesus Christ was “moved to compassion.”  Christ was moved to compassion when he saw lost people.  He was moved to compassion when he saw sick people.   So I’d like to ask, what moves you personally to compassion?

I think of people around the world.  I think of the millions of people in the Third World countries who are hungry, poor or sick.  I think of the people who live every day of their lives in fear because of war.  I think of battered women and children in America and all over the world.  I think of the lonely—those who lost a loved one to death,  those who lost a loved one to divorce or those who desire to be married and have not found a spouse yet.  Ithink of the military families where one or more parents are far away from the family at Christmas.  I think of the orphans who have no family and no home to call their own.  These children go to bed night after night wondering, “Does anyone care? Does anyone love me?” I think of those who are hurting—often times these people hurt for years and do not ever tell a soul they are hurting.     I think of the lost people—those who know there is more to this life, but can’t find their way to Christ.  I pray this year they will find their peace and comfort in Him because outside of Christ there is no hope.  I pray that the few “bad apples” in Christianity who have hurt them, disappointed them or betrayed them have not caused their hearts to become so bitter that they can never see Truth. 

Some of us need to open our eyes and wake up.  We need to allow our hearts to get stirred and move and shed some tears on behalf of others.  The Bible says that there is a time to weep and a time to laugh,  a time to embrace one another and a time to not embrace (Ecclesiastes 3).  There is also a time to pray for others (Romans 14:5, Galatians 6:2 and James 5:16).  Let’s look outside our privileged lives more and think of others more and pray for others more.  We need to turn our backs on the needy LESS and give to others MORE.  We need Christ’s compassion inside of us—especially during the Christmas Season.  God bless.