Is Christmas Christian?

It’s not available in stores, even though display windows proclaim it. No one can give it to you, even though Christmas greeting cards proclaim it. You can hang it as an ornament on your Christmas tree, but it won’t do anything for you there. Ironically, it can be most elusive this time of year.

Peace. 

Some seven hundred years before the birth of Christ, the prophet Isaiah described the Savior we now celebrate at Christmas: “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).

A quiet whisper nags my heart as I frantically tackle Christmas preparations: “What are we doing?!?!”

I’m pushing through, hauling a burden rather than resting in His blessing. It’s a spiritual thing, not a physical one. That’s why it’s unbearable. That’s what makes me question: If all this Christmas craziness is a heavy burden, if it is hard not easy, if it creates madness rather than rest, is it of Christ? After all, He says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30).

I wonder if we’ve got it all wrong. If anyone deserves all we have to give, it’s the Lord. Yet, the way it is now, He often gets the least.

HE is Prince of Peace, yet we celebrate with chaos. HE is Mighty God, yet the mighty dollar rules and reigns as we buy decorations, teacher gifts, family gifts, groceries and supplies for parties and meals, costumes for pageants, tickets for Christmas performances, gas for road trips, and so on. HE is Wonderful, yet the hustle and bustle, the buying and receiving, the going and doing covertly diverts our attention from marveling Him. HE is Counselor, yet distractions keep us from receiving His counsel. HE is Everlasting Father, yet we long to please those around us, sometimes forgetting He is to be pleased over all.

If we’re honest with ourselves, none of these traditions of men are about Jesus, yet we strive to make Christmas about Christ. We agonize over the tragedy of droves of retailers who welcome the financial windfall of Christmas but forbid use of the word. Why do you think it’s so hard? Perhaps it’s because it was never about Christ in the first place.

Research the true origin of Christmas, and you’ll quickly discover its roots as a celebration of the sun, not the Son. I encourage you to do your own research, if you dare. Proceed with caution, however. What you find might challenge your traditions and participation. Here’s just a scratch of the surface.

The date coincides with a pagan sun festival that precedes Christ’s birth, which according to scriptural evidence could not possibly have been in December and was never celebrated by the early church. Emperor Constantine first established it as an official Roman Catholic holiday in 336 AD because parishioners who converted to Christianity continued to participate in the long-standing pagan feast, giving gifts to children and the poor, decorating with lights and greenery, drinking, eating, and being merry. In order to make it Christian, the emperor established December 25 as the birth date of Christ, and so it continues.

Christmas is clearly a tradition of man, against which Colossians 2:8 warns: “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.”

Traditions that follow the principles of the world cheat us. They lie to us and leave us spent, like Christmas can. But not Christ. He is all Isaiah said He would be: Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty, God, Everlasting, Father, Peace. All power, dominion, and control are His. When we follow His principles, we have what He is.

So where does that leave us? Could it be so ingrained in our American culture because it is the devil’s attempt to deceive and cheat us according to the principles of the world rather than living according to Christ? If it is, sadly, it’s effective.

I don’t have the answers. My prayer is that each of us would be so surrendered to the Father that we are willing to give up anything that is not of Him. Even Christmas, if that’s what He asks.

In the meantime, if Christmas is about Jesus, then let’s make it about Jesus. Instead of exhausting ourselves hanging lights, decorating trees, throwing and going to parties, shopping, wrapping, and reveling in holiday cheer, let’s be a light, pursue the lost and hurting, give to the poor, and above all, give all we have to Him. Not just for a day or a season, but every day.

I can hear my girls now: “Great, now mom’s going to take away Christmas! We’ve lost Target, Costco, Starbucks, and now Christmas. When will it end?”

That’s a great question, isn’t it? When will it end? When will we truly separate ourselves from the world in such a way that Jesus stands out? Are we really ready to become wholly His? To cross over the line of belonging only to Him, even if it means looking foolish to the world?

"It’s too much, Lord!!!” I cry in my heart.

“Is it really, Shauna?” He asks. “More than what Jesus did for you on the cross?”

May His peace rule and reign in your heart today as you surrender to become more wholly His this Christmas season.

Shauna Wallace

Holy His

When Experts Aren't the Experts

God taught us a whole new way of walking by faith when He moved us from Houston to suburbia and into the custom home building business (see last Thursday’s blog “Unbelievable but True: A Trucker’s Road to CEO” http://shaunawallace.blogspot.com/2012/07/unbelievable-but-true-truckers-road-to.html). In doing so, He planted our feet firmly in the starting blocks for the race that lay ahead. The faith it would require. The degree of obedience He would demand. Each lesson merely a beginning. Conditioning for a time when we would need prior experience to move forward with greater faith.

While I lived the start of our business, I was merely a spectator to a most incredible metamorphosis as the Lord birthed in James what was obviously conceived into the very fiber of his being. He did not go to college at all, and his only work experience was trucking. Yet the Lord placed him at the helm of his own custom home building business and harvested what He’d sown in James from the start. James had no training. No schooling in building and construction. He didn’t read any books or attend any classes. Yet, his keen eye to detail and uncanny ability to know how to build a sound home quickly set his houses out from the crowd. His extra touch became his signature. He immediately knew how to watch the numbers, vigilantly reviewing every bid, negotiating, purchasing, and watching expenses. The only explanation is that all that skill and ability was already there.

“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.

And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me,

when as yet there were none of them” (Psalm 139:13-14, 16).

Whatever James needed in order to accomplish God’s purpose for him was inherent within him. All God required was faith and obedience. God’s path circumvented the counsel any expert would have insisted was necessary to do what we did.

Psalm 19:7 says, “The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” Along those same lines, First Corinthians 1:20 tells us, “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” Verse twenty-seven answers, “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty.” God will do what He’s going to do, challenging the ways of this world to do it.

“We speak wisdom among those who are mature,

yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age,

who are coming to nothing” (1 Corinthians 2:6).

The rulers of this age will tell us and our kids there’s one path to success: theirs. If we don’t follow that course, we won’t be successful. God says the only wisdom we need to heed is His word and His way of doing things. Any other wisdom is coming to nothing. When the world says it’s foolish and stands in opposition to us, it’s going to require faith to move forward God’s way.

When it became obvious to our son that college was not for him, there were people who gently implied it was a mistake, insisting a degree was the only way to a hopeful future. Foregoing higher education flew in the face of “the way it’s done.” Had he followed the world’s way, chances are good it would have come to nothing. But God had other plans. Perfect plans. He started working full time for his dad, attended real estate school, earned his license, and now works his own business on the side, perfectly complimenting the work he does for his dad. No college degree. No prior training. At the age of twenty-three, he has already achieved more than most kids his age who pursued a degree and a white collar career. Not that one is better than the other; one just wasn’t God’s plan for Ryan, and the other didn’t limit his possibilities at all. Once again, I am a spectator as God draws the same vision and attention to detail from Ryan as He did from his dad, perfectly positioning him as an asset to our company, our customers, and his own future. Because of what God did in James, we were able to assure Ryan of His perfect plan for him, even as it defied everything conventional. God’s sovereignty rules, and no amount of wisdom of this age can alter His will. Not for you, and not for your kids.

As our oldest daughter prepares to apply to a four-year university, we can say with confidence that God will open the doors He needs her to walk through for the plan He has for her life. As fellow homeschooling parents consider putting their high school aged children in school because the rulers of this age say a spot in the top ten percent of the class guarantees entrance into any university they want, we can stand in faith that whatever God desires for our daughter is what will prepare her for His plan, and we don’t have to panic that His plan doesn’t fit with those of the world. As my niece struggles to retain a healthy weight and her joy in the face of pressure from school counselors to take advanced classes and already have her major and higher education all planned before she even starts her junior year of high school, she can be assured that God already has it all worked out. She can roll her cares upon Him (1 Peter 5:7) because His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:30).

In (Christ) are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words.

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,

rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith,

as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit,

according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world,

and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of

the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him,

who is the head of all principality and power” (Colossians 2:3-4, 6-10).

In Christ, you are already complete. Don’t be deceived! The wisdom of this age and the rulers of this age tell us to trust in ourselves, to do everything their certain way in order to position ourselves for the illusion of their ever-shifting definition of success. Our family is living proof of a God that makes foolish the wise and wise the simple. Our job is to put our faith in Jesus, to seek the Father’s direction through His word, prayer, and others He uses to speak into our lives, and to obey. He has already put in you everything He needs you to have. Whatever HE requires to accomplish His purpose, He will make a way for that to happen in your life. If He doesn’t require it, you don’t need to stress about it.

I pray the Lord strengthens all our faith as we follow Him against the tides of an ever unbelieving society. Lord, give us Your wisdom generously without reproach (James 1:5) as we place our faith in your power (1 Corinthians 2:5) and disregard the wisdom of this world as You accomplish Your plan in each of us. We are wholly Yours, Lord, and place our trust wholly in You.

Shauna Wallace

Holy His

Mighty Dollar vs. Mighty God

One of my favorite books is Dangerous Journey: The Story of Pilgrim’s Progress (Oliver Hunkin, Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 1985). The cover illustration of Christian as he trudges toward Celestial City perfectly depicts James’ and my life when we were first married (see www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Journey-Story-Pilgrims-Progress/dp/0802836194 for image). By grace, through faith, the penalty for our sin was paid. We no longer carried that burden, yet the consequences of our sin remained strapped to our backs. As God began to instruct us in His ways, He gave us understanding that His guidelines are for our own good, to put us in a place to receive all He has for us. He moved on our hearts to desire Him and His ways and opened our eyes to the individual boulders nestled in the net.

The heftiest weight? Tens of thousands of dollars of debt. We both worked sixty to seventy hours a week outside the home. We lived paycheck to paycheck, making no forward progress. I desperately wanted to stay home with our children, but our debts demanded my income. We were slaves of our own poor choices.

“The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender”
(Proverbs 22:7).

Because our commitments exceeded our income, we didn’t tithe. While I had been trained by my parents to give ten percent of everything, and would do so while charging other expenses on credit cards, James, as a new believer, had a harder time with giving money to the church when we owed so much to creditors. I feel a future blog stirring on this topic, so I won’t go into detail about giving today. I am also not making any theological claims with my story. Only sharing the conviction of the Holy Spirit on our hearts, and the incredible blessings we experienced as He empowered us to obey. We prayed about our debt and withholding our tithe, and we felt the Lord was leading us to deal with both at once. It was time to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one
and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24).

We enrolled with Consumer Credit Counseling for debt consolidation services, and we cut up every credit card we owned. If we couldn’t pay cash for it, we didn’t buy it. Period. We paid a hefty monthly debt payment, and started giving two percent as a tithe to the Lord. Every time we paid a credit card off, we took the amount of that monthly payment and divided it between increasing our tithe and increasing our payment to the next lowest credit card balance.

God changed our mindset. He broke the bonds of borrowing for instant gratification, and obeying Him became more important than the things we thought we had to have or do. The satisfaction of living free of the affliction of sin was greater than the temporary pleasures of that sin.

“For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”
Philippians 2:13

He taught us that what we had was enough, and then He met every one of our needs, every time, even when we couldn’t see any possible way. We learned that God’s way of meeting needs is always abundant, always right on time, and always just what we need, but we had to be willing for God to do it His way. Like a boss who let me bring my newborn to work with me the first eight and a half months of her life, allowing me to be with her full time and nurse her. Or when a mom would call and offer garbage bags full of used clothes for our kids, and sometimes for me. Other times, my dad and his wife would visit, and she would take me shopping for a “happy” – new clothes for work, just because. A garage sale became a gold mine. Grandparents would buy clothes and supplies at the beginning of the new school year. God even provided with unexpected bonuses, extra overtime pay, and even a surprise check from the estate of a precious elderly neighbor who had been a foster grandmother to my sister and I growing up. In the midst of paying off our debts, when no mortgage lender would touch us because we were active with Consumer Credit Counseling, God opened doors for us to buy our first home. He made a way when there was no other way.

At the end of three and a half years, all glory to God, all our consumer debt was paid, including our cars. We were giving our goal of ten percent of our gross income, and that included every gift we received, every bonus, every penny that came into our household. We continued to live frugally, buying only what we could afford with cash, and we saved. We were financially free.

"For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
Matthew 11:30

Slowly, even though the numbers never made sense on paper, God opened doors for me to cut my hours to half time, and my employer agreed to let me work from home, an unusual arrangement at the time. We knew it was God’s desire that I be home with our kids, and He gave us the faith to trust Him. Shortly after that, I started a home-based business on the side that eventually replaced the income from my job. I was finally able to stay home with my kids – the desire of my heart met by an almighty, all-powerful God who can cause anything to happen.

Lining our finances up with the word of God can be one of our most faith-challenging areas of obedience. God shows us what to do, and He gives us the power to do it, but it falls squarely on our shoulders to take the action. We have to do the obeying. God’s deliverance came through the complete submission of our finances to Him. We had to stop the sinful behavior – no more charging. We had to pay those we owed. We had to do what His word says and give our firstfruits to Him.

“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask
or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory
in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations,
forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21).

That first house – an impossible possession made possible by a mighty God – four years later in a declining market, sold for $65,000 more than what we paid, enabling us to build a custom home in a small town outside the Houston area. If we could have concocted the most incredible scenario possible based on our wildest dreams at the time, we never could have come close to the unbelievable plans God had for us starting with that house. Plans to turn a truck driver into a CEO. That story next Thursday.

Lord, money can be such a stronghold and stumbling block for us. Move in our hearts to obey you in all ways with our finances as we become more wholly Yours today.

Shauna Wallace

Holy His

Scorched: A War of Two Wicks

I’ve reached a stalemate with my candle. It will no longer burn at both ends, no matter how much I push it. Perhaps age has something to do with it. It seems only months ago that I could string together endless nights of five and six hours of sleep to no significant consequence (or so I reasoned). Drink a little extra coffee, push a little harder, and I could keep on ticking. It’s not that I have an aversion to sleep. I actually love it! But the pile on my plate (many times self-stacked) and being married to a man with an opposite body clock seems to have locked me in a sleep-deprived season that has lasted more than fifteen years.

James is a night owl. I am a morning person. I say this with complete love, and he would agree, there is no hope for him to defect to daybreak. Several hours of wake time precedes any hope of a productive conversation with him. But catch him at night after he’s shifted from work-mode to husband- and daddy-mode, and you can ask for the moon. (Timing is everything around here.) If life didn’t dictate a semblance of normal hours, he would happily piddle until the wee hours of the morning.

In order to enjoy time with James at night and take advantage of my favorite early hours of the day, I have become slave to both circadian rhythms, getting up early and staying up late, squeezing out precious chunks of slumber in the process. The problem is, I just can’t do it anymore. My body has staged a protest and I don’t have the energy to fight it! Yet, I struggle with what to give up. How to make it work.

God answered this weekend with Psalm 127:1-2:

Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep.

Once again, a verse I’d read many times before leapt off the page and pierced my heart and understanding. I looked it up in the Greek and referenced my handy-dandy dictionary for a few words, and here’s what the verse means:

Unless the one true God establishes, rebuilds, and causes the home and household within to continue, efforts to establish, rebuild, and cause it to continue will be hard, exhausting, slow, difficult, and ultimately empty, worthless, and full of deception. Unless the one true God has charge of and watches over that place, the one in charge of watching and protecting stays alert to a pointless, meaningless end. Therefore, it is useless to make an early start and delay sleep, to devour and burn up the bread of pain, hurt, toil, sorrow, hardship, offense; for the one true God grants, consecrates, delivers, and produces sleep to His whom He loves very much.

The Lord spoke directly to my heart: “Shauna, if you are getting up early and staying up late, sacrificing sleep in the process, the things you are doing are not of Me. If it is of Me, you will have plenty of time during the day to do what is required for my purpose, and you will have plenty of time for sleep.”

Talk about convicting! If I continue to pursue my own agenda, to-do list, pleasures, and the like, it’s going to continue to be hard, and I’m going to continue to experience emptiness at the end of my exhausting days. Not that there aren’t times when an extra push might be needed, or sacrifice required, but as a rule, God used this verse to tell me that when I am about God’s business and allowing Him to guard over the things and people in my life, I can then spend my time on what He desires for me, and that will include plenty of rest.

As I evaluated my typical day and the things on which I spend my time, the things that get me up early and keep me up late, I saw through new lenses – truth lenses. Sacrificing sleep in order watch a television show with James is not God’s work for me, no matter how I justify it. Not that there’s anything wrong with enjoying some check-out time with my husband at the end of the day. But giving up sleep for it isn’t God’s wisest and best choice for me. Spending time on Pinterest or Facebook or otherwise wasting time on the internet to the delay of completing what truly is important in a timely manner so dinner and other evening activities can begin at an earlier more “normal” time is probably not God’s wisest and best choice for me. Exercising at 7:30 p.m. in order to satisfy my emotional compulsion and addiction to adrenalin, thereby pushing dinner to 9 p.m. and everything else later is likely not God’s wisest and best for me. Turning down a child’s request for bedtime reading because I’ve made poor choices during the day and have to spend that time accomplishing the “musts” before I go to bed is probably not God’s wisest and best for me or that child. Operating from a place of exhaustion, irritability, and glass-half-empty is probably not God’s wisest and best for me.

Funny how God’s timing works. I found myself sharing this with one of my kids today. I see so much alike in us – driven, achievement-oriented, quick to take on one too many things, and slow to let anything go. Worn out and exhausted, this child appears to be on a last leg and doesn’t know how to get off the wheel. As God shows me the err of my ways and the answer of His word, He is giving me opportunity in the midst of the lesson to learn alongside my kids. I find myself baring my struggles before them so they can see we wrestle with the same things, bringing me face-to-face with the fact that so much of what our kids learn from us doesn’t enter through their ears but their eyes.

God has spoken. They are watching. What will I do? Will I continue in the same habits, or will I conform to God’s perfect way for me – staying on His task and finding rest at the end of the day? Will I live before them with myself as almighty or Him?

“Lord, I want to live each day busy only with what is important to You, but how do I know what that is? Where the rubber meets the road – in the moments when I’m deciding where to commit my time, whether for five minutes or five hours – how do I know? Thank you for opening the eyes of my understanding when the choice is obvious. I worry, Lord, about the times when all the choices appear to be good but only one is Your best.”

Jesus said in Matthew 11:30, “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." If my efforts are hard, exhausting, slow, and difficult; if I’m feeling empty, and worthless, and I’m deceiving myself in order to justify what I’m doing, then perhaps my labor is not of God. This verse is a good litmus test. God’s work can be exhausting, but it’s usually invigorating at the same time. There’s peace, confidence, and restoration in the midst of it. A useful, virtuous, manageable burden. Light in weight. Not driven.

Discerning the difference is the key. The how is by the Spirit (see May 21’s blog, “Steward Well by Wind, Bit, and Lead”). Once again, there’s not a formula I can apply to guarantee my own success at following God. It’s the relationship. The constant dialogue with the one who knows all things, sees all things, and orders the steps of the righteous. A continual asking, seeking, and knocking. Living with ears wide open, heart’s antenna pointed to heaven. Loving Him through obedience.

Thank You, Lord, for always answering with Your word as we become more wholly Yours.

Shauna Wallace

Holy His