Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas

THE MANGER AT BETHLEHEM.

Happy Christmas to my readers. I hope you and your loved ones enjoy all the blessings that this Christmastide has to offer.

So what might this Christmastide got to offer you?  Opportunity.

Give to your enemy forgiveness,

To your opponent tolerance,

To your friend your heart,

To all people charity,

To every child a good example,

and to yourself—respect.

Other options to explore are outlined in this poem:

This Christmas, mend a quarrel.

Seek out a forgotten friend.

Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust.

Write a letter.

Give a soft answer.

Encourage youth.

Manifest your loyalty in word and deed.

Keep a promise.

Forgo a grudge.

Forgive an enemy.

Apologise.

Try to understand.

Examine your demands on others.

Think first of someone else.

Be kind.

Be gentle.

Laugh a little more.

Express your gratitude.

Welcome a stranger.

Gladden the heart of a child.

Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth.

Speak your love and then speak it again.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION.

We may not be able to do all of this during the next 12 days of Christmastide, but we do have all the year to explore the possibilities, since Emmanuel means God with us.  However, there are 22 lines in this poem.  We could 

• take the sentiment and apply each line for a week.  
• add 4 lines of your own to the poem. This would make half the year.  
• start again for the remainder of the year.  Imagine the growth in us by next Christmas.!!! 
•  Alternatively, you could take each line for a month, making 11 months and consolidate it in December.  After all, it does take 21 days to start to change a habit. The important thing of course is to start.

I remember a family who used to discuss and pledge to each other how they could grow together at Christmas Day celebration.  Each member would nominate an area of growth they intend to work on for the following year. Then as a family, they would collect their ideas and write it so that all family members had a copy.  Then they would also nominate one area for the family to work on together.  This related to how they were with each other during the year.  

Throughout the year, they would support each other in these areas, both as individuals in the family and as a family. They used to make their goals simple enough to be realised and yet, challenging enough to encourage personal and family growth.

Perhaps it might be something you might to add to the tradition of your family at Christmas.

So now that the cash registers are quiet and the shops are closed, take some time today to think of the wonderment of the Incarnation of Jesus- God coming to our world as a baby- one like us in all things except sin.

How will Jesus be born again in YOUR life this Christmastide?