I got a text from our oldest daughter last night. She had three more boxes of Christmas decorations to put out around her house. She said “if it doesn’t get put out tonight, it’s not getting put out at all”. It was her way of saying she was done. It always seems to take longer and longer to get everything out and set up. She also laughed that she was getting forgetful because she had found several things that she had not remembered having. I can relate. I open up the Christmas storage boxes and am so excited when I spy some memento that hadn’t been thought of in a while.
Putting out decorations is a lot like walking the faith walk. We forget about what we have in Christ. We keep it boxed away for special occasions. Then we enter a season of worry or pain or hurt and out come the boxes. We don’t remember that God is with us, God heals all our hurts, or that we have nothing to worry about. We dig open the boxes of faith and find just what we needed. We search some more and we give ourselves and God a time limit. “If I don’t find the answer tonight, I’m done with it”. Yet just beyond the dawn of the next day God’s answer may come. We must not limit God either in His timing or our faith. We must keep digging, keep opening and maybe even leave the ornaments of the faith out all year long.
Oh beloved, don’t limit God! Open wide the gifts of faith, hope, comfort and joy! Use those ornaments often – they should be a part of your everyday life. You need to use them, not save them. Daily use of God’s great décor will help you in the good times and you won’t have to go looking in the bad times. God knows what you’ve been through. He knows you’ve had loss and grief, sorrow and pain, lack and fear. But His faith decorations cover all that! He wants you to keep God and His provision out of a box! Nothing you’re going through now has caught God by surprise. Yet He says celebrate Me daily. I will provide all your needs, I will see you through it all, I will give you more riches of the faith as you walk in the provision I have for you now. You see lack, God sees provision. You see boxes, God sees displays. Forget what you can’t do anything about and enjoy to the fullest what you have been given by faith.
God loves you and He’s for you. Place those two magnificent decorations in plain sight. You are loved, you are cared for, you are blessed and protected all the days of your life. Don’t wait for a holiday to enjoy what you can have every single day. And don’t keep it all stored away where you might forget it. God’s best is not seasonal, it’s for you every single day. If you can’t find something you need, dig deeper and keep looking to God until you find it and find Him and find rest for your whole life as you live in the light of God’s glory and grace!
Hebrews 11: 1 Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.
Psalm 27: 13 Yet I am confident I will see the LORD’s goodness while I am here in the land of the living.
Psalm 31: 19How abundant are the good things that You have stored up for those who fear You, that You bestow in the sight of all, on those who take refuge in You.
Deuteronomy 11: 18-20 Fix these words of Mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.