I love
Christmas. I love the excitement building as we get towards the day, the crisp
cold mornings, planning and buying presents, seeing all the decorations go up,
the beauty of carol services and fun of Christmas lunches. But I can get really
bogged down in the 'to do' lists. Sometimes I write them down and sometimes
they are just in my head. That endless list of things to buy, things to do,
things I meant to do a few weeks ago but just didn't get round too. All those
people I meant to catch up with, the cleaning I meant to do and all the
Christmas cards to write. All to make the perfect Christmas. You know the one,
the one in the adverts and in the magazines. The one where everyone is smiling
and happy, where all the decorations match and you can almost smell the home
baking off the TV screen or the pages of the magazine. What a pressure. And
each year I feel the temptation to succumb to it. I can get so distracted by
the idealised image that I can be difficult and irritable when other people,
particularly those closest to me, get in the way of me completing my 'to do'
list.
I have
been meditating recently on a verse from the Psalms: Ps 127 v 1.
Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labour
in vain.
In the
run up to Christmas it seems to have become even more relevant. All those
'things' I want to do to build a perfect Christmas suddenly seem to be put in
perspective. They are not necessarily wrong in themselves; it's lovely to plan
and prepare for fun at Christmas but when I let them get in the way and
distract me from the most important part of Christmas then I am wrong. They cause me to sin against my family and friends by
being irritable and the Lord Himself when I fail to put Him at the centre of my
life. When I run around trying to complete my endless 'to do' list I am trying
to build 'my house' without The Lord.
This
Christmas I pray my home and yours will be full of happiness and laughter,
whether it's clean behind the sofa or not. Most importantly of all, I pray that
we will know the joy and peace that comes from a life and home built on and by
the Lord.
