Not Feeling It?

The Good News: God doesn't need you to feel the Christmas Spirit.

God's grace is so powerful that it has the capacity to overcome our natural resistance to it. ~ R. C. Sproul

If you’re feeling devoid of holiday spirit, you’re not alone. If the world seems too hopelessly mired in darkness to be redeemed by a Christmas miracle, your feelings are understandable. If discerning cold, hard truth has caused you to lose your faith and capacity for wonder, don’t be alarmed. Your pessimistic mind is not an obstacle for the Source of all that is. God does not get angry when you don’t feel “the Christmas spirit,” when you avoid religious activities or boycott hymns, because God doesn’t need you to do any of those things.

God doesn’t wait for you to work up feelings of faith. In God’s time, God supplies all the faith that you require, because faith is God’s work. God’s grace is not dependent on your feelings or actions; you may feel faithless, miserable, and confused, but God remains the same. Despite the fragility and unpredictability you experience in this lifetime, only faith can reassure you that God’s plan will ultimately prevail in the fulness of time. There’s nothing you can do to earn or lose God’s favor because you are lovingly imbued with the agency to create your life as you wish and experience the natural consequences of your choices:

• Faith is doing the next good thing you can think of, even when you’ve been hurt, wronged or unjustly accused.

• Faith is following your conscience, even when reason, emotion and popular opinion oppose it.

• Faith is not a feeling at all; faith is waiting patiently in the darkness.

  

Have you forgotten God? Even if you have, He has not forgotten you.

~ Moses

Manmade narratives about who you are and who God is may have been ingrained in you by your early religious training. It can initially feel like a betrayal of your religious role models, but you may need to unlearn what you were taught by people whom you trusted before you can experience the gift of faith. It helps to remember that disempowering religious doctrines were promoted by men to control the masses; punitive attitudes come from people, not God. Jesus spoke truth to the power players of his time as he taught his followers that they need obey only one simple commandment: Love.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. ~ Matthew 22:37-39

If you feel deeply discouraged whenever you mess up, it’s a sure sign you’ve put your faith in yourself, not in God. Faith is not a mindless trust or a neat trick we manifest with our positivity. Instead, it’s recognizing that you and your best efforts are indeed hopeless without God’s grace, but that your efforts are worthy because of the faith implied. By dedicating yourself to regular spiritual practice, you will start to realize that the work of faith is in letting go of all the substitute gods you’ve created— prestige, money, reputation, “being right”— to embrace the only God who loves you.

Where can I find God? we ask. We don't realize that's like a fish swimming frantically through the ocean in search OF the ocean.

~ Ted Dekker

If you’re not feeling merry this holiday season, take courage: Refuse to yield an inch of your soul’s territory to an occupation by a faithless intellect. Instead, challenge any gloomy thoughts by asking yourself if you can really, really know that what you believe about yourself, God and about life is true. Be open to the unexpected miracles with your name on them. Remember, faith isn’t something that you must manufacture yourself. Ask for it, and you will receive it, in God’s time. It could be the very best gift you give yourself this Christmas.

If all else fails, find humor in the folly and foibles of humanity. Enjoy this little gem sent to me by my friend, Ronnie Rocket.