Living Christmas

My quiet time today was a walk.  It wasn’t really “quiet time”.  I listened to a podcast from The Village Church.  Matt Chandler was interviewing Lacrae.  (I know. Amazing.)

One of the things Lacrae said just blew me away.  He said, “It’s not about how loud you can scream it.  It’s about how long you can live it.”

Yes.

You know when you are young, you want to just tell everyone everything you know?  At least I did.  I wanted to show everyone that I knew what I was talking about.  The topic could be religion or politics or anything really.  I had an opinion and you were going to hear it.  When we are young we do this without realizing it.  Sometimes, sadly, when we are older, we do it and we think we are “helping” people.  Shouting and screaming and talking over them.  Lord, forgive me.  Forgive us.

I have been thinking about the wise men as they were coming to see Jesus.  The way they followed the star and found the baby Jesus.  The way they had to keep quiet and flee so Herod would not find them or kill Jesus.  Don’t you think they wanted to shout it from the rooftops? Don’t you think they wanted to scream, “We followed The Star!”, “We found The Messiah!”? But God asked them to not go back to Herod.  He asked them to be quiet.  Here they had just given their gifts to this baby King and I’m sure they were all jacked up and excited, right? If they had cell phones, they would have taken selfies and video taped the whole thing.  It would have been tweeted and face booked and snap chatted.  They could have been reckless for personal gain.  But they were not. Wise men, indeed.

I long to be like the wise men..to follow God’s lead, seek Jesus, worship Jesus, lay my gifts before Him and then…listen and obey God’s voice.

This Christmas, Lord, I pray our lives will speak of your saving grace.  I pray that people will know of the hope and peace you bring because of the way we live and love each other.  Lord, quiet our mouths, open our hearts and move our feet. Amen.

Merry Christmas!

©2015 Sue Bidstrup, Great Big Yes™, All Rights Reserved