Inside out
By Cheryl Courtney Semick | 4th November 2007
Welcome to the penultimate month of a year that slipped right through our grasp! Thankfully, November ushers in a time of gathering and feasting on the fruit of our labor – a time when joy and cheer are, at the very least, manufactured. I guess you could say that’s a good thing – it’s a respite nonetheless.
People seem to pay a little more attention to strangers, holding open doors, saying thank you, obeying the Rules of the Road. OK, maybe not that last one as much - but there is still a remnant of cheer-abiding citizens out there, despite the commerciality of the season.
What is disturbing to me is why only two months for this behavior? Why not twelve? Why don’t we sing the Twelve ‘Months’ of Christmas? Why are giving, singing, thanking and joyfulness reserved for the end of the year, like a winter coat we remove from the closet and put on over who we are underneath?
Thankfulness and joy are not things we buy, acquire or own, instead they are chosen, practiced, and lived and in this alone is their perpetuation. The secret to ‘comfort and joy’ and ‘peace on earth’ is that we live our lives from the inside-out.
Regardless of the culture, not a person on earth can be fooled by obligatory glee and even a child knows when a gift lacks love. If the heart isn’t in it – it’s better that it was never given at all.
Such was the mind of God when he conceived our existence. He could have made us to love him wholly every day of our lives – that would have been easy, though quite boring. Instead, he gave us the choice to love him or to hate him. If it’s not authentic, it’s of no value.
At the table on that first Thanksgiving were hearts that praised God for his protection and provision, minds with a vision for a free world, and voices overflowing with unabashed gratitude.
What a great example the Pilgrims left us – their very name describes a pursuit of purity, in principle and practice, of a life of thanksgiving from the inside-out.