As I sat in my living room during the Christmas season I happened to glance at the beautiful nativity set that I had placed on the living room side table. As beautiful as the scene should have been, it was lost in the clutter of my hectic, hurried lifestyle. What should have been a wondrous, awe-inspiring scene of my Lord and the wiseman as they bowed to give the Christ child their gifts, was now a dumping ground for all my disorganized droppings. Around the gathering of worshippers was a half-empty cup of coffee, a stray DVD, a jar candle and a partially eaten Christmas cookie. What had I done to the divinity of this solemn group? How did I manage to allow anything to desecrate the sanctity of that representation of the most glorious moment ever on the face of the earth? But I did manage it! I sat there staring at the ugliness of the scene and I knew then and there that I must again do something to right my wrongs, something to bring the honor back into a dishonorable state.
Isn't it true for most of us though, we have forgotten to take time to honor the things which are the most valuable to us. We all have, at times, desecrated those things or people that we should treasure and take pride in the most. We've forgotten how valuable they truly are, not necessarily in dollars and cents but in the deepest sense of the word, "value". We may be guilty of not saying "thank you" for gifts of time given. We may not have taken as much care with a gift that someone truly sacrificed to give us or maybe with our words we have exposed the garbage that is truly
in our hearts and minds. Whatever the scene looks like, it represents well what is truly going on in the natural. But, be of good cheer. . . . there is still time and lots of grace to right the wrongs of our desecrated moments.
"To err is human but to forgive is divine" or something like that! And divine forgiveness came my way that holiday season as I got up and cleared away the clutter from that most holy of groupings. I gave honor back to the moment and honor back to myself. As I wiped up some spilled coffee and swept away the cookie crumbs, I once again felt as if this whole little scenario most assuredly had come to my attention by sheer divine providence. And just maybe the baby, and me, had a much clearer view of things that had been temporarily lost in the clutter of my life.
Insight insert: There are days and weeks and months that go by in some of our lives that we don't stop to notice or give honor to the things in our lives that are the most valuable. How many times do you leave for work in the morning and you don't kiss your spouse or children goodbye and tell them to have a good day? Somewhere there are others that need a financial gift to get by in a bad situation and we waste money in so many ways. There are many people that I know who don't own a vehicle and then there are those of us who have expensive ones and don't take care of them. This dialog could go on with many more scenarios but we hopefully understand these! Give some honor back to your dishonorable states this week in some way. Bless someone you know with a monetary gift or someone that has to ride the bus to work, go pick them up and grab some coffee for them on the way! Clean up your desecrated areas a bit, sweep the crumbs of selfishness away and give Jesus a much clearer view of who he made you to be!
Scripture: Proverbs 22:9 He who is generous will be blessed, for he gives some of his food to the poor. NAS
Philippians 2:4. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests but also for the interests of others. NAS
No comments:
Post a Comment