Can anybody out there say, “Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr”?
It’s been crazy cold lately. Like Yankee, freeze-your-nostrils-shut cold.
It has me wondering if maybe, just maybe, a white Christmas might not be totally out of the question around here.
Wow – wouldn’t that be something? Convenience stores packed with frantic, last-minute holiday shoppers AND the milk-and-bread snow crowd.
I experienced a few white Christmases growing up in central Indiana. They were nice, even though the price tag usually included tolerating dirty little mountains of snow in parking lots and on roadsides until the spring thaw. But yes, a white Christmas was a bit magical.
If I could order up a Christmas snow here in South Carolina, I surely would, because this would be a wonderful place for that to happen. Snowfalls here are perfect–beautiful, fun and gone before they get grungy.
Travel woes notwithstanding, there’s a lot to like about an occasional good snowfall. I especially appreciate the amazing quiet that settles in as snow begins to pile up. Life stops and schedules change. God gently lays a blanket of insulation over the land and over life for just a little while.
When I go outside and traipse through the snowy woods around our house, it’s almost like I’ve been transported to another dimension – Narnia or Wonderland or Oz. Everything seems different, serene, pristine.
I feel permission to gear down, simmer down, and quiet down.
You may think this sounds crazy, but that’s how I sometimes feel when I worship God. I mean really worship Him. Mindlessly going through the religious motions doesn’t count. Mentally compiling my Walmart list while my lips are singing or praying doesn’t count.
But when I’m really engaging, really thinking about what I’m singing and praying, sometimes I become keenly aware that I’m in the very presence of God Almighty. I glimpse His greatness and majesty, but I also sense His tender smile, like a proud papa at a piano recital. His unfathomable love wraps around me and at least for a little while, I am at peace.
I gear down, simmer down, quiet down inside.
I believe worship blesses God; I know worship blesses us.
I heard a story about a father and his young son who were riding on an elevator. As it stopped on various floors to pick up passengers, the little boy got squeezed toward the back. Obviously, his view wasn’t very good with all those big-people keisters directly in his line of sight.
Finally, the boy held out his arms and yelled, “Pick me up, Daddy! I don’t like the way things look down here!”
I understand that.
Pick me up, God! I don’t like the way things look down here.
When I really worship, when I take time to behold God–His bigness and tenderness, His truth and grace, His power and mercy—it’s like He picks me up and suddenly, everything looks different.
“…fears are stilled and strivings cease,” one song describes it.
“…in His presence, all things are new” and “…heaven and earth become one,” another says.
When I worship God, my nagging worries are muted and my heart can finally get out-in-the-snow quiet.
“Be still and know that I am God,” He says. (Psalm 46:10)
“Come to Me…and I will give you rest,” He says. (Matthew 11:28)
Worship reminds me who God is … and who is God. It reminds me that nothing is too hard for the One who created it all.
Whether it snows or not, let’s take some time this Christmas season to gear down, simmer down, quiet down. To behold Jesus, the Prince of Peace.
O come, let us adore Him.
- You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in You.”
— Isaiah 26:3