The gift of the present

When I was a kid, I loved to read books almost more than I loved to breathe air. I could get lost for hours in a good story, and it was always hard for me to put my book down and give my attention to other things.

Somehow, I felt like when I walked away, the story was going on without me in there, and I could almost hear the wars raging or the characters’ amused voices as they discuss something hilarious.

They beckoned to me when I was supposed to be making my bed. They seemed to call to me when I ought to have been doing math homework. I’ve recognized the same struggle in my kids. When Adelade was young, if she ever had two minutes free, she would pick up her book and spend those two minutes enveloped in the world inside. For us, a good story is a present tense deal. Always happening. Always moving.

This Christmas it’s important to remember that God’s story, the Truth, is a present tense deal, too. Sure, in a matter of days we’ll pack up our Christmas decorations and try to get Rudolph out of our heads for the next eleven months. We won’t be thinking so much about Jesus as that sweet baby in the manger.

But the reality of Immanuel remains: God with us. Not God was with us or God will be with us, but God with us. Here, now, and always. Christmas reminds us of the sacrifice. It reminds us of the sweetness.

When the Christmas season moves another eleven months away on the calendar, the God of the Universe doesn’t move an inch. He is here. He is alive. He is working.

I am so thankful for that little baby in the manger. For His perfect life. For His horrific death. For His miraculous resurrection. And for the way that He reigns now, on a throne at the right hand of the Father. He is there now, and yet He is here, working in all the details of our lives, reigning in our hearts, and promising that He will never leave or forsake us.

God with us, now and forever. Merry Christmas!

Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.” Matthew 1:22-23