Friday, December 26, 2008

The Messy Christmas Story

Last night we celebrated Christmas Eve and it was messy. We had to change locations due to the continual snow storm in Seattle. Everyone had a hard time getting to the destination; it was fun but crowded, it was all the messiness of life.

I spoke about how God allowed the first Christmas to be really messy so that we would know that we don't have to clean up our act to be in relationship with God. He wants to join us in the messiness of our real lives...holding nothing back! We ended up each taking a balloon, writing the "messy situation" that we wanted to give to him to dwell with us in, and then tying it to the manger or even the Baby King, until it looked like a great birthday celebration for the King!

The amazing thing about God is that he never just lets us talk about "his themes," he lets us experience them in real life. So, if I talk about messy, messy I get.

I was up in the middle of the night and our dog came out and threw up all over the kitchen floor, right in front of me. I was gagging and trying to clean it up and being really frustrated I was up in the middle of Christmas night cleaning up vomit, when I remembered that Jesus is with us in the messiness of our lives. And, literally it was if he was standing right there with me. It almost made cleaning up dog throw up pleasurable, well, maybe not pleasurable but a whole lot more meaningful.

Where are you in the midst of the messy in your life?
How are you positioned?
Are you experiencing Jesus, knowing how much he is delighted to be invited into our messes? He may not always fix them, but he is always present with us.


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