Don’t Miss the Blessing!

John Lennon once wrote a song called Beautiful Boy with the line that “life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.”  Many times in our lives we get so busy with life that we miss the the joy and blessing of what we are experiencing at the time.  In this season of holiday parties, gift shopping, and family traditions, we too often lose sight of the blessing of Christmas.

When Mary was visited by shepherds after the birth of Jesus, and they told her what had been told to them about her child, she “treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19).  These are two words we don’t hear very often except at Christmas – treasured and pondered.  God had just stepped into humanity and became a man.  Mary treasured and valued her child, and thought deeply about who He truly was.  Have you treasured Jesus and pondered His humanity? 

This is the blessing of Christmas that too many people miss today.  The fact that our God became like one of us, so that He might demonstrate His love for us, is so unbelievable that we don’t take the time to treasure and ponder what this means.  This single event changed the course of the entire world, and impacts every life.  This is no trivial matter that we should gloss over quickly.  But rather we should take the time to really contemplate this reality and what it means to each of us.

So I pray that this Christmas we all will take the time to treasure and ponder the Christ Child, like Mary did, and to seek Him like the wisemen did.  For nothing can “separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 9:39)  This is the Blessing of Christmas!