Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
Isaiah 43: 18-19 (NIV)“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
John 1: 5 (NIV)
Why not wrap yourself in Christmas all year long.
Maybe for the joy.
Maybe a reminder of that eternal gift for you and for me.
Maybe to help us through the wilderness and wastelands which past experience demonstrates will come.
So for me, for many of us—music, pertinent scripture, movies, nativity scenes, Christmas mugs, and other comparable things are very much welcome and around our home all year long.
For example, Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” with George C. Scott, is playing again upstairs. Time number seven, through the past season up to now.
“I wish to be left alone,” Scrooge said angrily.
A classic line by Ebenezer Scrooge early on in the movie, in response to a request for a donation for the poor and needy.
But then the nightly visit by the ghost of Scrooge’s former partner Jacob Marley, described as “dead as a doornail;” a necessary reminder, Dickens says, “or nothing wonderful can come of this story I am going to relate.”
Perhaps it also serves to remind us, as Isaiah referenced in the passage above, that no matter what, God is always supernaturally at work in the world and our lives—“doing a new thing!…making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
Marley’s visit foreshadowed a transformative night through the visitations of three more spirits.
And it changed Scrooge. Deeply. Eternally.
You can’t help but wonder though.
He couldn’t have been satisfied with his life beforehand, could he?
Was he fulfilled with all his wealth? Certainly he couldn’t be happy. Seriously, do you think?
You wonder if he was simply living a life one might characterize as “barely hanging on.”
I wonder if he was. I wonder if anyone else has ever felt that way.
Or feels that way today.
If so, maybe try this—Christmas. Christ.
And remember this—“The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Still does. Will always.
“A Christmas Carol” ends with this line—“It was said of Ebenezer Scrooge that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us and all of us. And so, as Tiny Tim observed God bless us, every one.”
Wrapped in Christmas. Wrapped in Christ. Our own “visitations” all year long. Why of course.
Providing much needed reminders—
God is here. God loves you…and me.
God is always actively at work making a way in whatever is before us.
God’s got it. And God’s got you…and me.
Merry Christmas—every one, always.
In His Name–Scott
