I pulled into the post office parking lot.  Stepping out of the car I reached back in and proceeded to balance four packages of various sizes in my arms.  I noticed a couple of other people in the parking lot headed for the post office door and I urged Aspen to hurry ahead and open the door to the post office for me.  Once inside the post office I was relieved to find only a half a dozen people ahead of me in line.   By the time I reached the front of the line, and had plunked down my packages to be weighed and paid for the line behind me trailed out the door.

Tis the season for joy and happiness.  We wish each other Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.  But true joy and happiness seem to get lost in the busy rush of the season.  The long line out the door at the post office squashes any merriness we had when we wrapped up the boxes and addressed them to our loved ones.  Even a quick trip to the store to pick up some toilet paper during the holiday season requires a marathon hike across the entire parking lot because of Christmas shoppers seeking joy filling up the parking spaces.

I think we are like the inhabitants of Bethlehem so many years ago, their lives too busy with the people who already filled their rooms to pay any attention to a King born in a barn.  Today we are too busy with the things we have placed in our hearts before Jesus came knocking on the door.   Jesus brings the same gifts with Him today that He did the day He was born in Bethlehem.  Joy, love, peace.  But, we hardly recognize them for the plain brown paper they are wrapped in.  In order to have true love, joy and peace we need to accept the humility Jesus brought with Him first.  True happiness, true love and true peace cannot be experienced without true humility first.  If we can’t see past the inconvenience of humility we won’t experience the joy it brings us.

But in this whirlwind we call life, we barely glance at the simplicity of humility and whirl on in our pursuit of more stuff.  Acquiring more stuff creates more stress which requires us to pursue peace and joy full speed ahead.  We rush through life unwrapping as many of the biggest, glittery, shiny, perfectly wrapped gifts of man-made happiness that we can all the time ignoring the gift of true happiness Jesus offers us.

I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t give gifts this Christmas.  What I am suggesting is when Jesus comes knocking at our door and offers us His gifts wrapped in plain brown paper that we take the time to invite Him in and experience the exquisite joy and beauty of His presence.  His presence brings the only true peace you will ever experience.  Open His presents in His presence today.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  John 3:16