Slowing Down: Embracing the Reason for the Season

Have you noticed the negative energy around the holidays? This hurriedness? This busyness? Self-imposed entitlement?

I know I have, and I found it on my heart to talk about slowing down. Are we really taking in the reason for the season? Rather than this societal expectation that we have to do it all and this instant gratification of gift giving and hurriedness.

We are given an extra hour of sleep when we fall back. How many of us are getting an extra hour of sleep? Or are you spending it being “productive?”

James 1:19: “Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.”

At the end of the day, we have this societal expectation of getting upset with the delivery drivers, the department store workers, this buzz around consumerism. What if we looked at the true reason for the season? 

Have we thought of the true experience of the Messiah, our savior, who was born in a manger? He didn’t have stuff around him. He didn’t have the latest fad or craze around him. He was sent here by God to save us in the simplest of places. There is that simplicity that I would love for us to get back to. Full immersion of the birth of Jesus. 

My hope and my prayer for you is to slow down this holiday season. Spend the season reading about the birth of Christ and know that our mere presence with one another is enough. Put away the phones. Put away the expectations. Just Be still. Our mere presence with one another is what matters most.