I hope you have spiritual mentors in your life. I’m not just talking about your
Pastor (who SHOULD be one of your spiritual mentors), but other men and women
who breathe God’s Spirit into your life on a regular basis. Greg Laurie, one of
my many spiritual mentors, is the senior pastor of Harvest Christian
Fellowship, with campuses in Riverside and Irvine, California. What follows,
here, is a teaching story Greg posted on Facebook (12/6/2013). I didn’t want to
lose track of it, so I reposted it here on the blog.
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Status Update by Greg Laurie
I heard the
story of a mother who was out Christmas shopping, frantically trying to get
everything done. She had her small child with her, but for a moment, she lost
sight of him. In sheer panic, she started retracing her steps and found him
with his nose pressed against the glass of a store display, looking at a manger
scene.
The boy said, "Mommy, Mommy! Look! It is Jesus in the hay!"
"Let's go," she said, as she took him by the hand and led him away.
"We don't have time for that."
Exactly! That is the whole problem with this time of year that we call
Christmas. We can be so busy celebrating Christmas that we forget all about
Christ. In a sense, we can actually lose God in the midst of it all. We can
very easily lose God in the so-called celebration of Jesus.
For many, the Christmas story is the one about Scrooge being visited by the
Ghost of Christmas Past, or maybe Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, or Frosty the
Snowman or Santa Claus.
But technically, can we lose God? No, we really can't. You can't lose someone
if you know where they are. If you know where they are, then they are not lost.
But you can lose sight of someone. And some have lost sight of the Lord in
their lives, especially at this time of the year.
Maybe you've had the experience of talking with someone who was checking their
texts or updating their social media as you're trying to tell them something
important.
God never does that. God is never disinterested. God is never distracted. And
even if we forget about Him, He never forgets about us. Christmas is not about
buying presents; it is about His presence in our lives.
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Think about that! Our focus at Christmas (and all the time, actually), should
be all about Christ’s presence in our lives. THAT presence is the… Joy to the
World! What if we spent less time buying presents, and spent more time in the
presence of God? Just a thought…
Your brother in Christ,
Dave
