Take some time to ‘see’ this Christmas season

 

christmas

From the Pastor’s Pen – By Brian Horrobin

In a journal entry dated August 5, 1851, Henry David Thoreau wrote: “The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”

During the busy Christmas retail season, while out shopping in the various stores and boutiques, we may “look at” a rack of warm sweaters or “see” something that a homeless person could use.

We may “look at” the frown on a store clerk’s face or “see” a single mom who is overworked trying to make enough money to put food on her family’s table.

We may “look at” an elaborate nativity display and admire the marble pieces, or “see” the figurine of the Christ child and think of God’s gift to us.

The holiday season can be a smorgasbord of tantalizing eye candy that we spend lots of time “looking at” or hidden, guest appearances of the living Christ in ordinary situations.

Mother Theresa saw the face of Christ in the eyes of every miserable soul on the streets of Calcutta, India where others noticed only social outcasts.

If we will pause long enough to consider and care for the people around us, we will then be able to “see” them as those for whom Christ died.

Such a perspective takes one’s mind off the temporal and places it on the eternal.

The Christmas season is a wonderful time to actually pay attention to those people and situations that others quickly pass by with a cursory glance.

We only have a week and a half until Christmas.

Why not pray and ask the Lord to help you to “see” what He wants you to see this week, and not just hurry by.

You may even end up being used by God to make a difference in someone’s life – just at the time they need it.

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