Christmas Eve blessings

Merry Christmas! (It's 12:01am!)

I intended to get this post written on Christmas Eve but baking and watching Christmas movies and eating sugar cookies from around the world distracted me a bit!

This was the first Christmas Eve that I didn't celebrate with my Dad's side of the family and today will be the first Christmas I won't go to my grandparents on my Mom's side. It's just weird. Honestly, even though I've baked sugar cookies, kind of decorated a tree (see below), sang Christmas carols and watched Christmas movies it just doesn't feel right! I guess you don't realize how much you love traditions until you can't fulfill them. But what doesn't change... the reason that we celebrate this holiday anyway... Jesus!

As we ate dinner (breakfast style) and enjoyed delicious cookies and watched Polar Express I thought about the fact that this world celebrates the birthday of our Savior, whether they realize it or not. Giving gifts, eating food, gathering with family and friends, that's what you do for birthdays! No matter where I find myself, the reason doesn't change, and that part I love!

Our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree!

Christmas Eve dinner... Egg scramble, leftover chili, leftover veges and toast.

(Family who are about to eat chinese... I'm a bit jealous!)

Christmas Eve fun continues with the Polar Express, German vanilla sugar cookies, American sugar cookies, tea and lots of laughter.

Enjoying some Irish tradition of Coco Pops and laughing through a Christmas episode of Father Ted!

However, my favorite part of my Christmas Eve day was the time Jesus and I spent together this morning watching a sermon by Pastor Mark Driscoll. My prayers have been pretty consistent and to the point lately. Jesus, this unsettling, changing of plans all the time, my way not happening, things not making sense, feeling lonely, etc. are just hard and I don't know how much longer I can handle it. I know you are enough, I know you love me, I know you only allow to happen what is best for me, but it just doesn't make any sense. 

And then I hear these words...

Difficulties, to say the least, was Mary and Joseph’s life easier or harder once Jesus arrived? Harder. Let me be clear. I can’t promise you that if you stick close to Jesus you’re gonna get rich. You may be poor like them. I can’t promise you that life will be simple. It might get complex like theirs. I can’t promise you that your suffering will go away. It might intensify as theirs did. We don’t come to Jesus to use him for an easier life. We come to Jesus for eternal life, which is a quality of life that begins now, and a duration of life that lasts forever.

They had difficulties, not the least of which was all the moving. I mean, you just look at the difficulties. They’re probably teenagers. They’re poor. Joseph’s trying, as a carpenter, to make ends meet to feed his family. Any of you men feel that? Just feeding your family is hard enough. Imagine you keep moving, unannounced, to a different country in the middle of the night. It’s difficult. Everybody’s gonna think that your wife is a tramp. Your son is gonna have all kinds of confusion because he’s Immanuel, God with us.

Now, go from Nazareth to Bethlehem with your pregnant wife so Micah 5:2 can be fulfilled, and he can be born in Bethlehem. Oh, they’re trying to kill him. Complicated. Who is? The king. “Well, who do I call?” Can’t call the police. You can’t call the military because it’s the king who’s trying to kill your son. Move to Egypt, they’re in Egypt for a while. Move to Nazareth, moved to Nazareth for a while.

It’s difficult because everything for Jesus is hard. Everything for Jesus is hard. If you’re gonna be with Jesus and do what’s right for Jesus, it’s gonna be hard. It’s gonna be hard in ministry. It’s gonna be hard in business. It’s gonna be hard in families. It’s gonna be hard in relationships. It’s gonna be hard financially, emotionally, spiritually, mentally hard. You know why? Because there’s resistance. You know why there’s resistance? Because Satan hates Jesus, and he makes life hard for all the people who are close to Jesus. There are a lot of difficulties. That’s the story of Mary and Joseph.

and he continues...

Sometimes when the Lord says, “Do this, don’t do that,” it’s because he loves us and he knows what’s going to happen, and he’s trying to get us to move quickly for our safety. Praise God that sometimes he answers our prayers no. “Can I stay?” “No.” “Can I go?” “Not yet” or “no.” See, a good parent, a mother or father, knows that if you always say yes, you don’t love your child. Amen? Because they’re going to ask for things that are not in their best interest or it leads to danger.

Some of you have been asking God for things. I don’t know about Mary and Joseph, maybe they wanted to stay somewhere. Maybe they wanted to settle down. Maybe they were tired of all of the chaos and the death sentence on their Son but when God moves them, he moves them because he loves them and he moves them so that his love might protect them. So it is for us. Don’t question the goodness of God. Trust, trust the goodness of God and obey the commands of God. That’s the dutiful picture of Mary and Joseph.

The whole sermon was really good but these 8-10minutes hit me like a boulder falling from the sky (think Wile E. Coyote & Road Runner) and I'm now laying flat on the ground unable to move for awhile. Mary and Joseph's lives got difficult once Jesus entered the picture. They had to move a lot once Jesus entered the picture. As I reflect on His birth I'm reminded that He didn't have an easy life nor did He promise I would. All He asks is that I would trust Him. God, born as a baby, lived a perfect life, died because He loved me and rose again proving to this world that He really was God. How can I not trust Him? Just like Mary and Joseph, I too have plans for my life, but upon Jesus entering the picture, all those desires must be laid down and His ways must be at the forefront. He is good, even when it's hard. I'm really praying that through this beautiful Christmas Day I can really acknowledge Mary and Joseph's trust in God to go where He asked them to to fulfill His plans and remember that He asks the same thing of me today. I pray that whatever the plans hold for today, tomorrow, this next week and so on that I can honestly say to God, "Okay" and really mean it. 

"If you say go, I'll go. If you say stay, I'll stay." -Rita Springer

LINK to the full sermon.