The Next Seven Weeks
Posted on Nov 20, 2019 by
I needed a little inspiration for this Staff Trax, so I went to my Bible app. The Verse of the Day was from Galatians 1:10, “Am I now seeking human approval, or God’s approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” I think I can work with this.
These next seven weeks are generally THE time of people pleasing. There are expectations over cooking the perfect Thanksgiving dinner, making travel arrangement to visit family, getting the house in shape for family visitors, buying the perfect gift, attending Christmas parties, throwing Christmas parties, and the list goes on and on. As someone who loves the time between Thanksgiving and Epiphany, I know that all of this is done with the best of intentions to make people happy and the season merry.
We all have busy lives, and if we don’t intentionally put the true meaning of these seasons first, it stands to reason that we’ll fall into the trap of people pleasing. Sometimes that’s difficult to do when our society is so focused on materialism and we are inundated from every direction by Black Friday deals, cars with ribbons, the newest gadgets, and the current clothing trend.
Maybe we need to pause every now and then in the midst of Christmas carols, baking, shopping, and party planning and focus on the little one in the manger we are eagerly awaiting. A perfect opportunity to pause is to join us on Wednesday nights in December for supper at 6:00 p.m. and then an Advent service at 7:00 p.m.
There is enough joy and wonder in this season that an Advent wreath can sit next to a Christmas tree and that an Advent calendar can sit on the same table as Christmas cards, because the gift we were given on that Christmas Day long ago still cannot be contained to a single day or season.
Mikki Lawrence
Office Administrator