Great Christmas Article

I just stumbled upon a GREAT article on the Desiring God website. (click HERE) Wow! It puts into words what I am feeling and what I bet a lot of us are feeling.

We have sought to teach our kids so much during this advent season about Christ and WHY He has come and read the story of His coming over and over again. We will continue to do so for the next 11 days (Owen has a constant countdown in his mind for this! He is discouraged that Walmart is counting down to Christmas Eve because of "Santa" while we are counting down to Christmas Day because of Jesus. Oh, how to train him that we are not right and they are not wrong...we're just counting down to different things! Anyway...). And yet, wet still struggle to love each other. Owen still pushes Baxter down when he is in his way. Baxter still makes an angry face when I tell him no. I raise my voice when my children are not listening to me. ETC, ETC.

As much as we are excited about Christmas and about Jesus and about presents and about God's love for us...we are still sinners. We are still in need of grace. Constantly! I think that is why this article really stood out to me. Take a few minutes to read it. You will be glad you did.

This is the part that stood out to me the most.

"We are acting out both the surprised shepherds in the fields with their problems and squabbles and regular lives, and also the heavenly host that came to them singing, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men.” We can’t stop being the shepherds this side of glory, and God doesn’t want us to. He wants us to be the shepherds the whole way through that story. Listening, fearing, following, worshipping. We are bringing our children alongside us as we come in out of our worldly fields, smelling like sheep, to fall at the feet of an infant king in a trough, beside livestock and an exhausted teenaged mother. This is what Christmas is all about."


Thank you God that you are in the business of blending together the physical and the spiritual and redeeming it all as you go! We can truly say "Glory to God in the hightest!" And we can be thankful that He came to bring us "good news of great joy!"