Christmas always facinates me how much we anticipate the day and then when it arrives it's still passes in the same 24 hour time span just as the rest of the days in the year does. Having a Christmas away from the Christmas stuff was rather refreshing. It was just a lazy day of watching a DVD, reading and heading to the market to try to create something for a Christmas dinner. Shocking as it may seem I officially cooked my first Christmas meal. We didn't have the normal turkey, sweet potatoes and apple pie but it still passed a a decent supper. We had a beef stew, biscuits and fruit salad. It was kind of nice to make a meal and share it with my little family here. I can't complain too much. Then I also got to chat with my parents for a while and a couple of good friends. All in all a sucessful Christmas day.
There has been a bit of a theme running through my life lately that popped up again yesterday. It the verse Matthew 7:8 about being persistant in our prayers and to continue to ask God for stuff. This has really been important for me here in praying for peace in Darfur. It's easy to live in the middle of this crisis and get your work done but forget that only God can bring the peace that will solve this chaos. But there are other areas of my life that I quit praying for because I feel like God knows this stuff, so why do I have to keep asking for it? But I also know when I'm reminded to pray again something in me changes and I get a bit closer to the answer. So I was thinking about this when I was contemplating Christmas and the parts that I don't miss. I don't miss all the comercialism of it and the Santa part ot it. I know Santa is fun for kids and I don't shun it but as we grow up it seems a little crazy how big of a part of our Christmas this character remains. Santa seems like this big guy that all we have to do is ask him for what we want and magically it will appear under the Christmas Tree Christmas morning. So we tend to ask our families for stuff that we want and we ask Santa for what we want but do we ask God for what we want? I was thinking it's wrong to ask Jesus for something on His birthday but really when we sit down and chat with Him and talk to him about what our heart really wants, that's a gift to Him. What Christmas is all about is that He came so that He could be with us. He came so that I could ask Him for stuff and He could work in my life instead of Santa. It was a cool gift giving morning with me and Jesus talking about stuff that I want Him to do in my life that I know can't happen without His help. How sweet is that!
So that is my Christmas revelation for 2006. Start asking again for the stuff that you have given up on. He promises that He will answer.
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