All I Want
I love Christmastime.
Christmas music is playing, decorations are up, Charlie Brown is on tv…this is my favorite time of the year (even beats out March Madness).
This year I’ve been (self-righteously) proud that I haven’t really wanted anything for Christmas. I haven’t made any mental lists for any of the Santa’s in my life.
Then last Sunday, I realized that wasn’t true.
We were singing, “O Come, All Ye Faithful” and we started with the chorus, “O Come, Let Us Adore Him”. There was something more than the song, the tradition and the words speaking.
Then we sang, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”…and it was there again.
It was my Christmas list being formed from these songs:
Adore
Rejoice
Sing
Peace
I want those things in my life. I want them in my heart. Not like a Miss America contestant wants peace, and not like a Christian’s job description says to be joyful. I want to get back to what Jesus coming to earth meant. The night that the heavens couldn’t be silent, when a multitude of heavenly hosts sang.
Why did they sing? To tell us what an incredible git we had been given. Jesus came to redeem us. To make us new. To bring healing. To restore our hearts to God.
When did I lose it? When did that become “old hat” to me? When did Jesus become the toy I love on Christmas morning and forget about by the end of the day?
God gives us His Heart, His Son to set us free and I content myself with putting up reminders and symbols of Him and singing these songs that I have disconnected from the meaning of years ago.
And the consequence is that my heart has lost joy, has lost adoration, has lost meaning, has lost the plot.
Time goes by and it gets harder and harder to connect with it…with Him. I read His Word to read it, to check it off the list instead of seeing His heart poured out to me. I sing because it’s time to in church instead of singing because I can’t keep the joy inside. I pray to get what I want instead of coming to Him and thanking Him over and over for His love and His gift.
So, I stand singing these words…reading my Christmas list to God..and I cry because I’m missing something unbelievably important.
I don’t have to wait for Christmas to know that I got what I asked for…it’s right there. But this time I’m going to do something with it.
I want to stand at the manger.
I want to stand at the cross.
I want to stand at the empty tomb.
I want to stand before His throne.
I want to stand here now and I want to sing, “O come, let us adore Him”.