Little twinkle lights warmly glow in the evening in our home.
Tiny pink and colored Christmas trees have been set up around the house …
Festive Christmas carols can be heard at random times during the day… holiday baking and sprinkles and messes in the kitchen have begun…
And homemade gifts are being created, wrapped and sent through the mail to loved ones abroad…
But while we joyfully write out Christmas greetings, throw up another string of lights and create special presents for family and friends that we hold dear, the Lord has been showing me how easy it is to have commercialism cover up Christ during this season.
And I’m not even referring to the presents.
Because we all know better than that, by now.
In our family, we don’t have t.v. and we rarely, if ever, listen to the radio. We purposefully don’t subscribe to lots of magazines or ask the children to circle their favorite things in the Wish Catalogue that seems to find its way into every home in November. So it’s not hard to escape the present-push during the holidays.
But driving to town the other day, the radio was on and within 15 minutes, I heard a slew of commercials all about the holidays, buying this, going here, doing that, making memories by attending this event and catching the latest sale at this store. It reminded me quickly as to how easy it is to be deceived to do more and be at more places.
I know I say this every year – it’s NOT about the presents … and we all know that.
But for Christians, there’s another way we can let commercialism dictate our holidays.
This season, it can be a sad trend to see many Christian families putting off going to their weekly church service or their time with God because they have been too busy the rest of the week attending holiday-outings.
I’m not anti gatherings or fun times together. And I’m not against going to such outings as families. This can be a beautiful time of year to create special memories! But when it means you do not have time or energy to take part in your church family, then it does seem wrong. Putting commercialism before Christ can never be right, no matter what time of year.
It will not matter if you attended every holiday gathering this season with your children if your precious little ones have not met with Jesus lately.
How too easy it seems that we may have time for Santa Claus parades and perfectly decked halls, but we stay home on Sunday morning and skip church – or ignore Jesus all week {because being a Christian means more than just ‘going to church’ every seven days} – oh, yes, the little ones are tired from all the previous day’s excitement … but which should be the priority? Are you are robbing your family of a blessing by choosing commercialism over Christ?
Do we have time for breakfast with Santa and enough energy to visit all the Christmas-time markets and celebrations, but find it too rushed and exhausting in the morning to invite Jesus to our daily breakfast table or too tiresome to take our children to church to hear God’s word?
And yes, we all know that going to church doesn’t make you a Christian, but certainly skipping your time together with the family of God does not seem to be putting Christ as the top of the priority list. And this does not matter what time of year – Easter and Christmas are *not* the time to suddenly amp up your regular church activities. We need to make God and our relationship with Him – and our children’s relationship with Jesus! – the first and most important priority as a Christian parent.
It may not be the piles of ridiculous presents or over-stuffed stockings that are the issue anymore … but is commercialism still suffocating Christ this season?
We really ought to know better by now.