Christmas is my favorite time of the year. All the decorations, the music, and the fun times with friends and family. This year as I was decorating my house with Christmas lights it had me thinking about how much time I invest in making the outside of my house look nice and festive during the Christmas season. It also had me thinking of all the time it takes to get the house cleaned up for when guests come over.
But if I were to be hosting friends or family over at my house for the holidays, I would need to spend a couple days cleaning the house from top to bottom. As I was thinking about all this work that we do to make our houses look presentable during the holiday season it hit me. We spend so much time on the physical appearance of our houses or even the physical appearance of ourselves and not enough time on the internal areas.
In the same way we strive to make ourselves look like we have it all together, but internally we are struggling. We may be struggling emotionally, mentally, or even spiritually. We put these things into the “catch-all� room of your life that you don’t want anyone to see. We hope that by hiding these things away from others we won’t get asked or judged based on them. I want to share some scriptures on how we can work on dealing with the things on the inside that we are hiding.
First is the mental and emotional side of things. Philippians 4:6-7 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.�
Psalm 147:3 says, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.� In fact Psalm 147 has a lot of encouragement when it comes to what God does for His people. This Christmas season instead of trying to hide this struggle from others and making yourself look like you have it all together, be real with those around you. God sends people in your life to help you, guide you, and encourage you.
The other side of these things is the spiritual. This is the one that takes the most work on our behalf. We have to be willing to lay down our pride and follow God’s will. Matthew 7:21-23 says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’�
This Christmas season if we are struggling with our faith and we are trying to hide it from others we need to humble ourselves, swallow our pride, and seek the kingdom of God. Then we must follow through.
Let’s look at our hearts and our minds and do some Christmas clean up inside our lives.
— The Rev. Tim Dezelske is children’s pastor at Riverside Church in Hutchinson.
