I confess, I don’t like holiday decorating.
I like having things decorated. But I don’t like decorating. Maybe it’s because we are very much Team Fake Tree, but fluffing the branches is so uncomfortable?
This means that every November, the first experience of the Christmas season is usually not our best, and then we kind of have to recover. Because decorating, I’m told, is often this magical family kickoff to Christmastime.
And isn’t magic the goal?
Or if not magic, then memory making. Family time. Togetherness.
There are so many could-be goals. And they’re good things, to be sure.
But what I find at Christmastime is there’s also a pull on us. A pull from enjoying something to trusting it, from being grateful for something, to needing it or we aren’t going to be OK. A pull to make the good thing everything.
A pull, in short, to idols.
There is Always a Pull
“I didn’t expect you to talk so much about idolatry!” one friend said of Woven. But I did. A lot. Because the Bible does. A lot.
Why? Because idols are the things we trust to protect and provide for us instead of trusting God. If you’ve read a lot of the Bible, names like Baal or Asherah may be familiar options for who to trust in the ancient world. Baal promised to send rain, so critical in drought-vulnerable Israel. It’d be hard not to feel the pull.
But idols are not just isolated to the ancient world. They are alive and well, and I think the easiest way to spot them is to try and finish the sentence “whatever happens, it’ll all be OK, because…”
Because we’re together.
Because we’re healthy.
Because we’ve got our savings to fall back on.
What’s challenging is how the answers that come to mind are almost always good things. Important things. Even necessary ones.
That’s why they pull.
I advocate often for us to spend childhood helping gets get to know God and discover God can be trusted.
Put another way: what do we mean when we say Jesus is Lord? Why do we say that about him? And what do our lives look and feel like if we live like that’s true?
Whether we are aware of it or not, we are always teaching our kids who or what is lord. And if there is a gap between what we say we trust and what we show we trust, they feel it.
Which brings us back to Christmas and the pull.
Christmas Makes Three Offers
What Christmas offers you and me is
the chance to celebrate in a way that feels like Jesus is Lord.
the chance to name, honestly, what idols pull on us.
the chance to practice, in the beautiful ordinary ways we go through the season, choosing just Jesus again.
As Christmastime shines a light on what’s lord in our culture, the pull is both more sneaky and stronger.
Christmas magic, togetherness, family, providing gifts and experiences for loved ones—all good things.
But it’s all too easy to engage with those good things in ways that tell our kids that what we actually trust is our ability to create the curated, culturally driven, Instagrammable family experience of the season.
To get pulled.
To say Jesus is Lord even as we Christmas like he’s not.
All too often we say Jesus is Lord, and yet we Christmas like he’s anything but.
When it comes to who or what is lord this Christmas, I promise our kids notice. It’s amazing how Jesus is the reason for the season, but if you don’t put on those matching jammies and smile in front of the tree right this minute so help me…
That’s the thing about idols–every last one promises life and can’t deliver.
How might you accept what Christmas offers as we head into this season? What good might there be for you and the kids in your life to shake off a bit of the pull?
Perhaps a simple reflection could help.
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