Bah, Humbug

Over the holidays, my family watched the timeless classic, "A Christmas Carol," in a TV movie. Sometimes the scenes in the movie are a little comical to see a grown man acting so foolish over such a simple idea as Christmas. After all, who would not enjoy the family time and gift giving that has become such a part of Christmas for us? We watched the movie and had a few laughs at the expense of Mr. Scrooge. As I went to bed, I thought well that's it for that until next year. Or was it?

During lunch today, I continued to read a book I picked up a while ago called, "The Papa Prayer." It is written by a man named Larry Crabb. In it the author tells the story of how changing his prayer habits has resulted in changing his life and his relationship with God. Now who would not want a better relationship with God? I certainly would and God surely knows that my relationship with Him could use some definite improving. The part of the book I read today was making the point that we should concern ourselves with improving our relationship with God before we ask Him for things. In other words, make sure you are in a good relationship before you go asking for favors. It just made sense. If we ask for something from a good friend, we are certainly more likely to get it than if we ask someone we don't even know for something. So how do we do this? That is the big question.

The author suggests that we begin by presenting ourselves to God in our current state. This requires us to see ourselves as God sees us. Not the facade we put on the outside so others don't know who we really are. God can see right through all that window dressing. Nope, we need to see ourselves as we truly are and realize that God can see all those parts of us that we didn't want Him to see. When we do that we can present ourselves to God as we truly are in order to get to know Him better. The problem is that this is a painful experience for most of us. In fact the book suggests we just lay it all out to God. Tell him what a wretched person we are and how we feel inside when we act that way. As I thought of the prospect of presenting myself to God in this way, I had a vision of Mr. Scrooge at the end of his visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future. I had a vision of myself fully prostrate on the ground near God weeping in agony for the wretched creature I have become with no hope of salvation on my own. Using the imagery from the movie, I can clearly see that without Jesus' gift of atonement, I have no hope for any eternal future. I can clearly see how critical Jesus is to my future prospects and how I depend on God's mercy for my salvation.

The self-observation process for me definitely brought up a lot of past that I would just as soon forget, but it also helped me to fully understand my need for a Savior. As strange as it might be a painful process has worked a good in me. I definitely rejoice in knowing that I have a Savior that cares enough to lay his life down as punishment for my sins in order that we might enjoy eternal life with God the Father. In the words of an old commercial, who could ask for anything more?