Overwhelmed: Christmas Chaos
Overwhelmed:
Christmas Chaos
Here it is, the honest truth. The perfect storm of life occurrences converge and all sense of control has been lost. The home appliances have failed, the car is in the shop, the taxes are due, Christmas presents are to be purchased (with thoughtfulness), but there's tension in relationships and you've been asked to do more than you have time in the day to accomplish.
What is to keep us from giving up?
Christmas time can often feel this way. So overwhelmed in every life 'department' that any escape can sound really attractive. Even descending into a slump of depression or self-focused, self-righteous pity party. Our Bible reading had us in Nehemiah the last few days and I have to imagine that he felt a bit overwhelmed. The city of Jerusalem with its inhabitants of returned exiles were in desperate need of help. First, the city was without walls for defense. Second, the people had strayed far from God's ways. "...great trouble, and great shame" - Neh. 1:3.
By God's hand, Nehemiah is given permission and provision to return to Jerusalem and tend to these matters. How did he do it?
Prayer - Nehemiah 1:4-11
Persistence and courage to trust God in practical ways - Neh. 2-4
Righting wrongs with God's Word - Neh. 5:1-19
Reading and teaching God's Word - Neh. 8
Confession of sin - Neh. 9
Placing God's ways and purposes as priority - Nehemiah 12:27-13:31
This is a broad, simplified observation and each point could be dug into to great depth. However, what would it look like to approach our overwhelmed days with even these points? God moved in the hearts of his people through Nehemiah's active trust him. The wall was rebuild, enemies kept away, sins were confessed, repented of and reform came about. But the story is really not about how Nehemiah gained control of the chaos is it? Nehemiah is about how God brought his people to himself through the man who trusted him and through his word.
Jesus enters our chaos of overwhelmed lives inviting us to trust him. He stays with us, walks with us, leads and protects and convicts of sin along the way that we would turn and trust him anew. Of all that may be resting on the shoulders of your heart this Christmas season, I pray that we might trust the Savior as Nehemiah trusted the Lord. If those things 'get done', everything else is merely bonus.
Please know that because Jesus is with us, I am praying with you, trusting God with you, correcting sin with you, immersed in his word with you, confessing sin with you, setting his ways as first...with you.
In Jesus, we know, there is no trouble that cannot overwhelm us, and no shame that he has not borne for us!
Merry Christmas!
Loren