This is a season that challenges everyone.
For some it is a painful memory of loss. For others it is an attempt at creating memories. Atmosphere. It is usually a time of zigging and zagging to get things done. At a time when we are celebrating the remarkable Love of our God, it is easy to miss the immediate.
It is a particularly difficult season for me. I participate in almost twenty symphony concerts, am in charge of the Christmas program at church, and it is also a time of grading almost two hundred university final exams. In addition to that, there is an open house here at the Isaac House for many, many people whose gifts will be wrapped and place under a tree that I have no time to decorate. Christmas stockings, my responsibility, will also be forced on numerous family and guests.
In the middle of all of this, there are always emergency situations with my clients, and it is not possible to just put things off. I always think I will barely live through Christmas.
This year, in the middle of the heaviest schedule I have ever had, the Lord has given opportunity after opportunity to share His Life, and with folks for whom I have prayed for years and years.
We never know what He will do. We never know what is around the bend.
Soldier of The Cross, gear up and prepare for answered prayer.
Resist the temptation to declare that you have no time for anything.
Resist the temptation to think that the most important thing is to get control of everything.
Resist the temptation to think you have to please everyone.
Resist sentimentality.
Resist the need to out do or match any other year.
Soldier, the season does not change the calling.
Stand before Him as in any other season and declare your availability. Do it aloud. Tell Him that He can have you and that you relinquish habit, unhealthy tradition and concept. Tell Him that He can have every day, hour and minute to honor and reveal Himself.
Then, watch Him work!