Slow Down, Christmas, Birthdays
This week on the farm…
A slower week on the farm. After the farmer’s market Saturday, Amy rushed home to unloaded coolers, clean one of the cabins, and then load back up and hit the road towards Knoxville to go see Amy’s family. It was a quick trip filled with good food and good time together. We came back home the next afternoon to check on the animals and be home for Christmas.
Christmas morning was spent just with our family around the tree. Some farm chores, then to my parents later that afternoon. Wren’s 4th birthday was also on Christmas Day, so we tried to make it extra special for her. Amy’s birthday was yesterday.
On Tuesday I went with Amy and the kids on her meat delivery to Chilhowie. Then on the way home they helped me get the wrestling mats set back up for this week’s practice. No farmer’s market this coming week. Amy has been missing some of Hasten’s wrestling matches to be at the farmer’s market, but with no market this coming Saturday, she’s excited to see the kids compete.
With much of our schedule revolving around Christmas and spending time with family through the Christmas season, we’ve tried to intentionally remind ourselves and each other of the importance of Christmas and why we celebrate Christmas in the first place. Sometimes we get caught up in the consumer hustle and bustle side of the holiday that we lose sight on the true gift of Christmas. God left heaven to come live on earth with us. So that we might leave earth to go live in heaven with him.
With Christmas much on my mind, I listened to an essay “What Christians Believe” by C.S. Lewis who was an atheist for much of his life. Here are a few quotes:
“Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up, but in fact it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up.”
“A Christian is not a man who never goes wrong but a man who is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble because the Christ-life is inside him, repairing him all the time, enabling him to repeat in some degree the kind of voluntary death which Christ himself carried out.”
“That is why the Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one… But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because he loves us. Just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.”
“Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil. Why is he not landing in force, invading it? Is it that he is not strong enough? Well, Christians think he is going to land in force. We do not know when, but we can guess why he is delaying: He wants to give us the chance of joining his side freely… God will invade… When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks onto the stage, the play is over. God is going to invade alright, but what is the good of saying you are on his side then? When you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else, something it never entered your head to conceive comes crashing in, something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left. For this time it will be God without disguise… It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing; it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it.”
Have a good week.
Will