Christmas means lighted trees, presents, parties, and pageants full of pint-size shepherds and pudgy-faced angels proclaiming the birth of the Lord. We crane our necks, hoping our children won’t botch their lines, smiling as they charmingly reenact the old story. We’re full of Christmas cheer, happy to celebrate again with friends and family. It’s a wonderful season. But in all our Christmas frenzy, we often forget to wonder—

*about what it was like for a poor man to find shelter for his pregnant wife

*about the sound of the woman’s cries as she gave birth in a dirty stable

*about the audacity of God entrusting his own Son to two people who seemed hardly able to care for themselves

Most of us also fail to wonder about the infant’s name, given by an angel, a name linked to the holiest name in all of Scripture. For “Jesus,” a form of “Joshua,” means only this: Yahweh Saves. This time Yahweh would be present with his people not in the form of a burning bush but in the shape of a small child who later would provoke people to violence precisely because he echoed God’s self-revelation to Moses in the wilderness: “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I AM!”

Though Christmas Day may still be a few weeks away, this is a perfect day to bow down before our faithful, covenant-keeping God, praising him for the gift of his only Son, Jesus, the One who reminds us still that Yahweh Saves.

One of the reasons I find the gospel so convincing is that it’s nothing I would have dreamed up. Think about what God did. He became a human baby, who like any other infant had to be fed, burped, and bathed. He allowed himself to get the flu, to be teased, to stub his toe like any other little kid. To be thought the illegitimate son of a teenage mother. To have for his main defense against an irate king a human father without an ounce of political pull. And that’s just the beginning.

The apostle Paul speaks of Christ’s crucifixion as “the foolishness of God.” But surely God’s foolishness began when he allowed his Son to be born in a stable and laid in a manger. In fact, the life of Jesus was nothing but divine foolishness at work, trumping human wisdom and exposing it as folly.

Today, as I think about Christmas approaching, I pray for the gift of childlike wonder - to recognize with awe what God has already done for me. I pray, too, for the grace to embrace God's "foolish-seeming" plan for my own life, confident that his foolishness is far better than the wisest of my thoughts.

King Farouk of Egypt once wryly predicted the end of his reign, remarking that “in a few years there will be only five kings in the world — the king of England and the four kings in a pack of cards.” But Farouk, the last real king of Egypt, was leaving out the greatest King of all.

This year as Christmas approaches, I want to avoid making the same mistake. But what does Christmas have to do with acknowledging Jesus as King? In many churches throughout the world, Advent is observed as a season to prepare spiritually to celebrate Christ’s second coming as King, as well as his first coming as a baby in Bethlehem.

I want to make Advent a central part of our family’s celebration of Christmas. To do so, I have had to make some small, practical decisions.

A few years ago, I was surprised to learn that my grandparents never trimmed their tree until the night before Christmas. Apparently, it was a common practice back then. So that’s the first order of business. Resist the urge to decorate and party as though Christmas has arrived the day after Thanksgiving. No more nonstop Christmas music. No more franticness. In fact, I’m hoping this year to finish my Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving (check with me afterward to find out if I came close). That way the season has a chance to unfold in calmness.

Despite the protests of my children, who see everyone else’s decorations going up (this year they spotted a lighted Christmas tree in someone’s home two weeks before Thanksgiving!), I am determined that Advent will not become an endangered species in our house.

I am only allowing one concession, and it plays perfectly into my Advent scheme. I’m still planning to make the traditional candy house and then place it in a prominent spot in the living room. Fortunately my children have already learned the all-important rule: no eating — not one bite — until Christmas morning. So, a little more prayer, a little more self-restraint, a little more time to reflect on the goodness of God—these are the ingredients that very well could make this our best Christmas ever!

Lately, we’ve been hearing a lot about the subprime mortgage meltdown. It’s a subject that has made many ordinary people nervous about their financial condition. Coincidentally, this turmoil in the marketplace has coincided with my own investigation of the subject of God’s provision, an investigation I undertook because of my own need for understanding and because of work I am doing on a book that will focus on some of the more encouraging words of the Bible.

My study of the subject has led to an obvious conclusion: The Bible often ties provision to obedience. But, of course, none of us are ever perfectly obedient. We stumble, fail, and fall, and then we get up again. I began to wonder whether it might be possible to chart God’s provision based on one’s behavior. Could it be depicted like the rising and falling line of a graph tracking the stock market, for instance? Or is God’s provision something far steadier and more dependable? To use another metaphor, does this provision that Scripture speaks of operate more like a telephone connected to a landline where the signal is strong and steady or like a cell phone that only works when it’s in range of a tower? I was asking the question because recent circumstances had highlighted some of my own failures in the obedience department.

As I was thinking about God’s provision (and entertaining doubts about whether he would provide), I came across a story by Sharon Jeffus, a widow who talked about how disappointed she was when a particular relationship didn’t work out as she had hoped. One morning she found herself sitting in church. As she waited for the service to begin, her head was filled with thoughts that she later described as silly and childish:

‘God you hate me….you don’t care,’… Then a young man came and sat right in front of me and right on the back of his T-shirt were the words, ‘So you think I don’t love you.’ And a picture of Christ on the cross.

Like Sharon I, realized that I, too, am sometimes guilty of entertaining silly and childish thoughts about God. Maybe my priorities haven’t always been in perfect order. But God has never abandoned or condemned me, just as I would never abandon or condemn one of my own children because of something they have done. No, I realize, he has invested too much in me not to love me.

With this in mind, I keep praying, asking God to provide for what I and my children need. And the more I pray, the more I recognize how generously he is caring for us.

The process of learning to see God as my Provider continues. I am leaning on him more, withdrawing from him less. I am expecting him to take care of me even when I stumble, even when I don’t fully understand or want to face the nature of my needs—like the need for repentance, correction, and trust. I realize that God’s promised provision is conditional upon my obedience. But I also know that before I believed in him, Jesus provided for the greatest need of all—a way back to the Father who loves me. And he still provides a way back, even when I am tempted to think silly, childish thoughts about him.