I sketched the Christmas tree shown in the featured image. The drawing depicts how our tree looked every year when I was growing up. All the decades were represented by a beautiful blend of hand-crafted, Hallmark Keepsake, and Waterford ornaments. The tree was always perfectly lit (Mom would wrap every branch with white lights), and silver medallions of the twelve days of Christmas glimmered in the lights. The popcorn and bows gave the tree a Victorian look. A family linen always cloaked the base. I loved sitting under those Christmas trees in my childhood home. Apparently, this is a habit I have not broken because I found the sketch in my 1998 journal as I was reading under my 2018 adult Christmas tree. Twenty years later, and I still find myself under lit Christmas trees.
It’s not just the classic beauty of a Christmas tree that has me sit at its base, it’s learning about the Lord under those lights that drives me there. I can be reading from his Word, revisiting a lesson he’s taught me in a past journal, reading a book about him (right now it’s Nancy Guthrie’s Even Better Than Eden, which I highly recommend), or listening to a sermon.
Now that I’ve set the scene, I want to take you under the lights of the tree with me and share with you what I learned the other day. I was reading from Psalm 119, where we are given an entire psalm about God’s Word. Psalm 119 is structured around the twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Each alphabet section of the psalm has eight verses, and the first Hebrew word of each section begins with the letter of the Hebrew alphabet listed above the section. I was reading from the Nun and Samekh sections (Psalm 119:105-120). If you’re able to pause and read it first, the next part might make more sense. We are told all about the word, law, statutes, precepts, decrees, and commands of the Lord in these verses. With it being Christmas and celebrating that the Word became flesh (John 1) and singing in O Come All Ye Faithful “Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing,” the thought crossed my mind to replace every mention of the Word with Jesus’s name. In doing so, Christ reminded me
- He lights my path (v.105)
- He is the one I follow (v.106)
- He preserves my life according to himself (v.107)
- He teaches me (v.108)
- I will not forget him (v.109)
- I should not stray from him (v.110)
- He is my heritage forever (v.111)
- He is the joy of my heart (v.111)
- I am to keep him (v.112)
- I love him (v.113)
- He is my refuge and shield (v.114)
- I put my hope in him (v.114)
- Again, I am to keep him (v.115)
- In him my hopes are not dashed (v.116)
- I will always have regard for him (v.117)
- He rejects all who stray from him (v.118)
- Again, I love him (v.119)
- I stand in awe of him (v.120)
What an encouraging list of what we’ve been given through the person of Christ! I’m so grateful for a relationship founded on divine intervention. I’m so grateful for a relationship where I am guided, preserved, taught, shielded, and not let down. I will put my hope in a God like that over and over again. He is my heritage forever, and I stand in awe of him.
Look back over the list. What specifically from the list encourages you?
Merry Christmas! Christ has come and is coming again! May you follow him into this new year and every year after!