I love the ending part of A Christmas Carol. About how Scrooge was better than his word and came to know better than anyone else how to keep Christmas well in his heart.

What does that mean? To actually keep Christmas in your heart and not just sing songs about it or to give presents or eat a lot because of it. Could it mean keeping Christmas is more than a list of activities, more than an attitude of joviality and frivolity?

Maybe keeping Christmas requires a lifestyle change. Maybe it means that you celebrate Christmas and what it means not just one day of the year, or one week, or even one month, but 365 days a year, every year so long as God gives you breath.

Maybe keeping Christmas well means that you live out daily the Incarnation of Christ in you. Maybe you surrender totally and completely to Christ until all that is left of you is Jesus and all anyone else sees when they see you is Jesus. Your life becomes His life. He reaches out and touches people through you. He blesses and heals through you. He feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, ministers to the sick and comforts the lonely through you.

Maybe keeping Christmas means dying to your own dreams and plans. Laying down your hopes and desires. Maybe keeping Christmas means after giving up all those things, you take up God’s plan for the world, His heart for the poor and needy, His dreams for you, and His desire to see you become all He made you to be.

I want to keep Christmas well in my heart in 2011. Not just December 25, but all the other 364 days of the year. I don’t want to wait until January 1, either. I want to start now, the key word being start, not get it totally and perfectly right all at once.

I pray this is in your heart, too. I pray that you will want to keep Christmas well in your own heart with all the days God gives you, no matter what anyone else says or does. No matter whether it is socially acceptable or not, or whether anyone else around you follows.

God, help me to keep Christmas well in my heart now and always until You return and all the promises of Christmas are totally and finally fulfilled.

AMEN!

I’ve been told lately that girls like men with confidence. Shocker. For most of my life, I was seriously lacking in the confidence department and thus my dating life has read like a sad country song by Patsy Cline. But a conversation with some married friends got me thinking.

Maybe to be confident, I should act confident. You could say pretend to be confident. Do all the motions of confidence until the actions become habits, and the habits become a lifestyle. In other words, I act like who I will become instead of who I am. Make sense?

In the same way, we are called to act not out of present sinfulness, but out of who we will be in Christ. We will overcome, so we act like overcomers now. We will all be full-time worshippers, so we act that way now. We live out of the promises of God like they are already ours.

I don’t create my own reality by thinking it. But when I live out God’s reality, it becomes my own reality. I become the person God has already declared me to be: a completely righteous carbon copy of Jesus Christ. Granted, I don’t get 100% there, but I go a lot further than if I just live out of present guilt, shame, and fear.

Don’t let anyone or anything else tell you who you are or where you are going. Don’t even listen to your own feelings and thoughts, because they will lie to you at times. Believe and live out what God says of you and how He feels about you. Live out of belovedness and son (or daughter)-ship. Live like the victory’s already won, because when Jesus said, “It is finished!”, he MEANT IT!

From now on, no more bowing to the idols of self-doubt and fear and shame. We say to those and other lies of the devil, “You can go to hell!” Satan has no more authority over God’s children any more and he has no right any longer to speak to our minds and hearts. At the name of Jesus, he must LEAVE!

Believe that this Christmas and live out of the empty tomb and the resurrected Christ while you adore the infant Christ in the manger. We have everything and we have what it takes because we have every bit of Christ, and better yet, Christ has every part of us! Christ in you, the hope of glory!

I was thinking today about something I read a while back. I think it was Elisabeth Elliot who wrote about dying to self. She said that every hardship and disappointment is a chance to die to self. Every heartache or heartbreak is a chance to die. I have found that to be so very true.

Every time something I hoped for doesn’t work out is a chance to die.

Every time a person suddenly moves out of my life for no reason is a chance to die.

Every time a dream evaporates is a chance to die.

Every time I feel let down and can choose to lash out or imitate Christ in silence is a chance to die.

Every time I have a friendship where a wall suddenly goes up and the friend goes silent is a chance to die.

Every time I think I’m doing so very well and have it altogether, only to get tripped up over something petty, is a chance to die.

I have a chance to die every day to what I think are my rights, what I think I deserve. I have a chance to die to my need to be constantly approved, applauded, noticed, patted on the back, etc. I have a chance to die to my constant efforts to be liked and to be seen and to have my name look good. And I think I die a little every day in each of these areas.

John the Baptist said that he must decrease, so that Jesus could increase. That’s what I want to want. I want to want people to look at me and see Jesus. I want them to look at my life and instead of admiring me, to be awakened to a longing for Jesus. I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating; I am nothing and Jesus is everything.

If no one reads this blog or comments on it, it’s another chance to die. And this time, I’ll gladly take it!

Lately, we seem to miss the point of Christmas, I think. We’ve gotten so caught up in how everyone should be saying “Merry Christmas” as opposed to “Happy Holidays” or “Season’s Greetings” that we’ve mostly forgotten that Christmas is about seeing Christ. It is His birthday we’re celebrating, and it is all about Him, not us.

When we see Jesus through eyes of faith, two things happen: 1) our world is totally and  completely wrecked and 2) we fall on our faces in the dirt in worship. We can’t help but become undignified and fanatical in His presence. All our plans and posturing fall away to nothing at the feet of Jesus.

All those things we thought were so urgent and important fade away and the One we have taken for granted  takes center stage. All the striving to get that certain someone to like us or to be appreciated or to see and be seen ceases and we are finally able to be still and know that Jesus is God. We find out that we are so much more broken and needy than we ever thought, but Jesus is so much more than we ever dreamed He could be.

We can be disturbed by His presence or indifferent to it. I find the saddest thing about the Christmas story was that the religious leaders who knew their Scriptures and prophecy were reluctant to make that 5 mile journey to see the Christ-child. Truly, knowledge and piety aren’t what it takes. Adoration and worship are.

This Christmas, I want to be an undignified worshipper of the Child in the manger. I want to fall on my face in the dirt and open my treasures and give until it hurts and keep on giving until it feels right again.

What I’m asking for this Christmas is Jesus.

God, my banner and my shield, guard me today as I go about my daily activities. Guard me from the evil one and from the world, but mostly guard me from myself. Guard me from the overanalytical, obsessive-compulsive, selfish worshipper of me that I can be sometimes.

Guard my heard from being swayed to and fro by emotions, ungodly passions, infatuations and diversions from You. Guard my heard, the wellspring of my life. Let me not be in control of my own heart, but may Your peace rule over it. My heart is deceitful and if I let it have its way, I will be a mess. Even more of a mess than I am now. So guard my heard and while You’re at it, transform it, too. Take out my heart and give me Yours.

Guard my mind from figuring out how I can fix and manipulate and arrange everything to work out the way I want it to. Guard me from leaning on my own understanding in lieu of trusting in You. Take my mind and let me have the mind of Christ. All his thoughts were of pleasing You and accomplishing Your will. I want that mindset in me.

Guard me from me. Take me and break me and mold me into You. Fill me so that You fill me up and pour through every pore in my body until all the world sees anymore is You.

Be the Supply to all my need, the Answer to all my questions, the Wine to all my thirsting, the Bread to all my hungering, the Balm to all my hurt, and the Peace to all my anxiety.

Thank You that You  said you would be all these things and all the things I never thought or dreamed to ask You to be.

Amen.

When I’m feeling depressed or tired in my spirit, sometimes the best therapy in the world for me is a good Coldplay song and some caffeine. Especially songs like “What If” or “Fix You” or “In My Place.” And if you want to know what song describes my dating history, listen to “Fix You.” My dating life is sorta like the song– slow and sad. With lots of organs playing in the background.

I don’t know what it is. Chris Martin’s voice or the awesome guitar effects or the pensive, thoughtful lyrics. I just feel better with Coldplay. And caffeine helps, too.

Some other artists that give me good therapy are Patty Griffin, Sara Groves, Andrew Peterson, U2 and Joni Mitchell, to name a few. A good song is one that speaks to your soul and puts what you’re feeling into words better than you ever could. At least that’s what I think a good song is.

Oh, chocolate helps. But I have to lower my cholesterol, so I will be sticking with my Coldplay and caffeine for now.

Jesus speaks to me sometimes in the most unexpected ways and in the most unexpected places, whether through music or conversation or Scripture or just silence. I’m learning to appreciate the silence more.

Let me know what therapy you use when you’re battling anxiety or discouragement. I would love to hear what God uses to lift up your spirits!

I think sometimes forgiveness is hard. It’s hard to forgive someone who has betrayed your trust and hurt you. That’s hard. It’s also something we have to do if we really mean what we say about loving Jesus and following Him wherever He leads.

I think for me the hardest person in the world to forgive is me. I am notoriously hard on myself. Always have been. I give others way more benefit of the doubt than I do me. Sometimes, I think I do more harm by not giving myself grace and forgiveness.

Jesus said what you did to the least of these, you do to Him. What if at some point the least of these is me? If I am harsh and unyielding toward myself, I am the same way to Jesus.

I am learning that it really is okay to be human and fail and screw up. It’s not the end of the world for me when I try to hard to make a relationship instead of trusting God and letting the relationship grow naturally. God knew exactly how many times I would mess up, how badly I would mess up, and how many times I would keep messing up the same things. But He still chose to come to Earth and become an infant for me. He chose to go to Calvary and bear the nails and my sin, all for love of me. That should tell me something.

Jesus redeemed me. That is, He died to purchase me back and give my life meaning and make me into somebody not special, but extraordinary. That’s what redemption means: you are extraordinary, a masterpiece, and you are valuable to God.

This is a lesson I will learn and re-learn for the rest of my life, but I believe that with Jesus, no battle or struggle or heartache or heartbreak is ever in vain or wasted. He works everything in my life into something glorious and beautiful. And the most beautiful part of me has been, is, and will always be JESUS!