It's the most wonderful time of the year.

It’s that time of year again. Time for cold weather, Christmas shopping and the ‘guilty face’ you have to give your daughter when she innocently asks ‘what were you doing at toys-r-us?’.  Yes, it’s hard not to love the Christmas season, unless of course your one of the following people:

1) The Grinch
2) Ebenezer Scrooge

 But as this is doubtful, lets carry on.  The other day I was in Wal-mart and my eyes fell upon one of those flashy screens with the sole intent of catching your attention and keeping it.  “Give her Joy all year long with the new Ipod Shuffle” the words read and as I stared at it I realized how silly this ad was.  Treating this new and improved piece of technology as if it were the answer to all our problems.  I would first like to ask you this question: can earthly things really give us everlasting joy?  Let me be the first to say no.   I, myself, have relentlessly begged for things, claiming I would ‘never ask for anything ever again’ and assuming I would be given never ending joy.
Sure, I was content for a while until..  Something new came out.  Yikes!  It’s difficult to be constantly bombarded with new paraphernalia and not want it.  This is where real joy enters to picture.  Real joy?  Is there such thing?  Yes, real joy comes as a result of living your life completely for Christ, or ‘dying to self’.  Think about it, it is our selfish nature that gives us a desire for all of these ‘things’, so if we ‘died to ourselves’ we wouldn’t be affected by this insatiable desire for new stuff.  We would be content in spiritual joy and fulfillment.  So what does it mean to die to yourself?  In my view, it means to give yourself completely to the Lord, and ridding yourself of your selfish desires.  God is the only person we can get this joy and fulfillment from, often times we search the world for things that will satisfy us and like always, we are never truly satisfied.  We should search to completely follow Christ and seek our complete and total joy from him and him alone.   On that note, I will end with this seemingly relevant song: ‘Tis the season to be jolly fa la la la la la la la’.

Have a very merry Christmas and God bless!