What Do You Want For Christmas?
Have you ever poured your heart and soul into a gift? Perhaps you searched and searched for just the right gift for a special person. Or maybe you spent hours creating it yourself, adding lots of TLC along the way. Your mind conjured up images of the delight on the recipient’s face as she would unwrap your labor of love. The moment you have been anxiously waiting for finally arrives. Your camera is fixed on her face, so determined are you to capture the grand moment on film. But wait... something’s wrong. Her reaction is not at all what you anticipated. Perhaps she doesn’t appreciate the immense effort you put into this gift, or the price you paid, or maybe she just didn’t grasp the significance of your gift to her. You feel dejected at her indifference. (continued in comment section)
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Long, long ago, in the city of Bethlehem, our Heavenly Father gave us the most precious gift we could ever receive - His One and Only Son. He was born into poverty in a dark, cold stable and laid in a hard trough used to feed livestock. God’s Son lived a life of great sacrifice for our sakes; in fact He gave up His very life so that we might receive the ultimate gift of eternal life. On that first Christmas many received this gift with great joy; exactly as the Gift Giver had intended. But over time most of the recipients of God’s gift were indifferent towards it.
I once received a very, very precious gift from someone who had poured his heart and soul into it
before it became mine. This "someone” was a man named Ryan, and the very precious gift he gave me were his four children, then ages five, seven, nine, and eleven. He had poured many years into the preparation of this gift, devoting tremendous amounts of time and
energy and love and tears into their development before he offered them to me. For two years after his beautiful Christian wife fell ill with terminal brain cancer he raised them virtually alone. He nursed them through the tragedy of the loss of their mother. He braided their hair, painted their fingernails, helped them with homework, tended to their scrapes and bruises, and cooked and cleaned for them. I received the gift of his children with great enthusiasm.
Determined to be the best mother he could ever dream of for them, understanding that this was not just a gift from Ryan, but also from God, who was entrusting
them to me, I jumped in with both feet. I also held on to my very demanding, time-consuming, but
well-paying job after our marriage, since the kids were now all in school and I didn’t want Ryan to have to carry the burden of being our only breadwinner. My lunch hours were usually spent grocery shopping or hunting for the numerous other things that were
requested on nearly a daily basis. I wanted to show them that they could always count on me.
After a long day at work I dived into the role of mother, helping with homework, cleaning, supervising baths, taking time for prayers and bedtime stories. After
they were all tucked in I would finally tackle the nightly paperwork ad other tasks required by my job. In my spare seconds I would read every Christian child
development and parenting book I could get my hands on. I pored through them for ideas on how I could be an even better wife and mother, wanting so much to please my God and my husband.
Meanwhile, Ryan would come home from a long day at work to find me busy taking care of his gift. It was many months into our marriage before I learned that this did not please him. When Ryan came home from a busy day at work he did not want to come home to a wife who had been thither and yon, attempting to be there for everyone and do the tasks of three people. He wanted to come home to a wife who was willing and able to drop everything and sit down with him for a while, to share the events of the day and reaffirm our love for one another. But I was so driven to get through the day’s “to do” list that I could not take the time to indulge myself and sit and just be with him. There was one more thing that Ryan longed for: He longed for me to take time to relax and just enjoy the children.
You see, he became afraid that this
very precious gift he had given me had become a burden, a source of just one task after another,
though I saw it more as a labor of love. But, from his perspective, instead of the joy he longed to give me through this gift, he thought he saw my joy often being swept away by the tyranny of the urgent and it saddened him greatly. I then realized that if I wanted to make sure that I received his gift with the joy and fulfillment it was intended to bring, I had to slow down, (recovering workaholic that I am), and allow myself to just be still for awhile each day and enjoy the children, his gift to me.
Now, put yourself in our Heavenly Father’s place. He has given us a very precious gift in the birth of
His Son. The day we have chosen to celebrate the giving of this gift is Christmas. But it seems that
it is no longer a day of celebration, but rather a season of celebration; the Christmas season. And over the years the consumer industry has manipulated us so
that this season is becoming longer and longer. It used to be that the Christmas decorations, the cards,
and the gift displays would be set out the day after Thanksgiving. Slowly it has inched its way earlier into the year until now some displays are brought out
the day after Halloween. I don’t know about you, but for me, when I am confronted with the Christmas
displays on November 1st, it elicits an immediate sense of pressure and anxiety within me because it’s time to get into the swing of Christmas again, even
though I have barely recovered from last Christmas.
So why the pressure and anxiety? Well, it starts with the gifts. Research and thought needs to be put into the selection of each gift. Where do you find it? What is the best price? What is the best time of day to venture out to get it? Can I find time to shop
before the “Christmas rush” begins - before the traffic jams, the crowds, and the long lines emerge?
And the big question for many; how do I pay for all this? Then, after all that is behind you, you still
have to find time to wrap all those gifts. Then you have to deliver the gifts. Some need to be mailed.
If you’re lucky, you will find a parking space at the Post Office. But you still have to gather the
patience to wait in line to be served. Then there are the cards to get out. Do you compose and include a “Family Newsletter” this year? Do you enclose a family picture? Do you brave the long lines at the post office to buy stamps? Where do you find the time
to sign and address cards, seal envelopes, and lick stamps for fifty cards?
Then there are the parties to attend, perhaps parties to host, a Christmas tree to buy, a house to
decorate, Christmas treats to bake, Christmas Tree Lane to visit, and on and on... let’s stop here. I’m
exhausted! Of course, all this is in addition to the daily maintenance tasks that still cry out to be done during this hectic season. Is it any wonder that the
blood banks very actively solicit blood donors in December because they see a marked increase in the
incidence of bleeding ulcers this time of year? More clinical depression is diagnosed this time of year also, and the suicide rate rises significantly. Crime
rates increase too, partly due to the skyrocketing consumer debt that occurs during the Christmas season.
Increased stress in our lives, brought on by the demands of the holidays, also contributes to the
rising crime rate.
Now, do you think this is what Jesus wants for Christmas? Does it please him to have us celebrate
His birthday in this way? Or does He wish that we could celebrate His birth with joy in our hearts?
Would He long for us to just stop during this hectic season and sit and be still before him? Would He
prefer that we observe His birthday meditating on this most awesome and beautiful of Gifts? Surely, what
Jesus wants for Christmas is for us to stop much of this nonsense and just spend quiet time with Him,
enjoying the Gift. A lot of sacrifice was made to present this Gift to us. Indeed, God must have poured His heart and soul in to the planning of it. And all He asks in return is that we slow down enough to let the meaning of Christmas fill our hearts with peace
and joy. So, let us take time to smell the poinsettias. Or as Psalm 46:10 exhorts us, “Be still
and know that I am God.”
Charles Hummel, who wrote Tyranny of the Urgent, warns us in his book that when we allow ourselves to
become slaves to the tyranny of the urgent we may work day and night to achieve much that seems significant
to ourselves and others, but we will not finish the work God has for us to do. To receive our marching orders we must take time to be in His Word, and make
adequate time for daily waiting on God as we pray and worship Him. Shall we do as Mr. Hummel suggests?
Will we commit to a daily quiet time and establish a habit that will endure far beyond the Christmas season? Will you allow it to become a lifelong habit
as your birthday present to the Lord? It might very well be the best birthday gift He could ever receive from you.
Jesus, the Gift that keeps on giving. If only we will receive it.
-Pamela LaChapell
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