What are you hoping for this Christmas? Shawna is hoping for good rest. What she really needs is God rest. Rest for her soul! It’s the gift God wants to give you!

After a life-time of trial and error Perry is convinced, “My performance will never get me the verdict that I’m a good person.” There is only one way to get that longed-for verdict.

Sometimes we choose to take matters into our own hands rather than trusting God. Because of a traumatic experience with her daughter’s dog, Shawna vowed never to buy green grapes ever again! Vows are ways of baking into our hearts, “God, I don’t really trust you.”

During the last 3 years of Perry’s mom’s life, she descended into the fog of some dementia. At she began the descent, she admitted to Perry’s dad, “I just don’t think I want to go on living.” But then 8 words from Jesus gave her the strength to go on.

“I don’t need you to rescue me!” comes from deep within Shawna. She resisted every offer for help when she got stuck in the ditch during a snowstorm even though there was no way she would get out on her own. Rescue starts with laying down our pride.

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Jesus came to us as a baby at Christmas time. And Jesus still comes intimately close to us now.

Sometimes He comes into the darkness reminding us that He is the Light of the World.

Steve Norman of Winning at Home & host of The New Norm Podcast has written a devotional to help us ready our hearts to celebrate Jesus’ coming. It’s called Countdown to Christmas.

At a time when he was sitting in physical darkness and feeling ashamed, Jesus came to Steve through the words of his 4-year-old son singing, “This Little Light of Mine.”

As Steve was hitting the wall in the 17th mile of a marathon he was ill-prepared to run, Jesus ran next to him through words of encouragement from fellow runners.

Jesus comes and meets us where we are. Eugene Peterson says in The Message “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.”

Jesus is Immanuel, God with us!

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That’s what the last couple years for Perry has felt like. Starting in 2021 with a 90% blockage in his Widow-Maker artery. But Perry can honestly say, “I’m thankful for every hardship.” What?? It’s because of what God does in us through our suffering. That he can’t do any other way.

For some, Christmas is not the most wonderful time of the year. Shawna asked a friend how she could pray for her and she immediately teared up. Jesus, Immanuel, Joy of the world, is with us in our sadness too.

Perry and Shawna listener Brian texted them in September saying, “Please pray for me, I have a really bad disease.” And 3 months later Brian was gone. Perry went to pay his respects this past Monday and as he walked back to his car it felt like death was on him like a heavy blanket. The blanket lifted as he thought of some words of hope from Aslan!

Everything seems bigger at Christmastime. The good things seem better. The hardships seem greater. Christmas doesn’t create our problems or improve our lives – it simply amplifies what already is. Christmas was never intended to magnify us. This Christmas let’s magnify the One Christmas is all about.

Before Perry was 25, God had blessed him with some amazing open doors for the Kingdom. And then, that season was over and he found himself cleaning toilets. Super humbling. It wasn’t anything Perry had chosen. But for Jesus he gave up all his glory willingly, for us!

Jesus’ birth was not His beginning. He always has been and always will be. Jesus came to give us eternal life. Only an eternal being could offer an eternal gift.

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