Lesson from the antique store globe

I feel kind of ridiculous.

A bunch of holiday-related responsibilities are spinning around in my life; they are mild sources of stress, taking up all my time and energy, and I want to complain. I want to list out every annoyance. All the stuff and people and jobs and food I have to buy and wrap and make and manage. Too many extras on my plate and I start to get annoyed about it all.

So a while ago, I'm staring at the globe on my desk. I bought it at the local antique store strictly for its cool colors. All shades of turquoise. I love turquoise. And it is hard for me to stop my mind which is bathed in annoyance long enough to remember that the globe is a representation of something. I tell myself to remember that it's not just a pretty, turquoise picture wrapped and pasted onto a sphere. All the squiggly lines are outlining countries. Real countries, filled with real people. I keep staring.

Most of them don't celebrate Christmas.

It's the same today as when Jesus was born. The world kept on turning. Hardly anyone noticed the baby. Even given the smaller population of the world at the time, the birth of Jesus didn't turn more than a few heads. Today, fewer and fewer people, it seems, acknowledge Him at Christmas.

And I feel ridiculous. I feel like complaining about so many trivial things, when I am celebrating the birth of my Savior. It's like I know the combination of the lock on the safe that holds everything I've ever needed, but I keep getting distracted by a pebble in my shoe.

First I felt ridiculous, and now I feel convicted. I know the combination. And all those people.... and all these people, meaning not just those in distant lands, but on my own street. These, right before my eyes, they need the combination and they don't even know it. I have it. They need it.

And it's Christmas. Hardly anyone is noticing the baby.

I have to ask again, Lord, open the eyes of my heart. Let my life, my love, and my every way point to the baby like a star in the midnight sky.