Holiday Happenings

December can be a month of mixed emotions. We can delight in decorating, preparing gatherings for friends and family, and we can delight in the true reason for the season – the birth of Christ. This alone can give us the grace to persevere and to anchor down on Truth when the events and happenings of Christmas threaten us with hard and difficult people.

Is this true for you? It is for me! Do you have family, and friends of family that you would prefer not to see? Christmas, and any holiday, would be a whole lot more fun for all if those persons were not included in festivities. But, for some reason we encounter them every holiday, year after year. It can be hard! We know it can be.

We know God is sovereign over every person with whom our paths cross and we endeavor to please Him, we think because our disdain is not overt we can get by with a veneered smile hiding a heart attitude of contempt and indignation. We can’t. You can’t, and neither can I.

What are we to do?

When tiresome guests make malevolent statements, have crass attitudes our response must originate in Ephesians 4:29, ‘let no foul or polluting, nor evil nor unwholesome or worthless talk ever come out of your mouth, but only such speech as is good and beneficial to the spiritual progress of others, as is fitting to the need and the occasion, that it may be a blessing and give God’s grace and favor to those who hear it.’ And the exhortation – the reason to do so – is found in Romans 8:28-29, ‘We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.’

This does not mean we need to come prepared with a chapter and a verse memorized ready to repeat it at a moment we have vigilantly strategized and waited for. Often this kind of action by us only adds to the awkwardness of the holiday and leaves an uncomfortable moment and memory for all. It adds to the dread of future holidays, and deepens the divide between family, and their friends.

Plan your words, plan your responses. To not make or give a Biblical response does not mean you are shallow and not taking the call to share and spread the Gospel seriously. You are. Planning and strategizing a kind and gracious response takes time. It is a commitment. It is a loving and caring act.

• Who are those difficult people in your life?

• Do you know their stories?

• How will you respond this year?

• Plan some questions to learn more about them, and their struggles and difficulties.

• Go with a plan to listen, and not to speak.

• Listen, and listen some more.

• Then, if necessary speak!

#words #holiday #family