One of the things I love about this time of year is all the Christmas music. Songs that have gone unsung for 11 months return, lyrics of joy and adoration rise above the noise and messiness of our lives.
Funny, though, how quickly we grow tired of them. Maybe not without spiritual reason. Advent is, after all, a season of waiting. Waiting to rejoice. Not yet. We're still carrying our burdens. In our house, the Mary and Joseph figurines are standing on top of the printer, still slowly making their way to Bethlehem. Like us. And the manger is still empty.
What songs go with this season?
I love our Advent playlist, and I try to keep a good balance of Now/NotYet in the tunes, but I shuffled things around this week. The first couple are about the lost. Don't be confused. That's you. That's me. That's your neighbor and my CVS checkout pal. That's the story of Christmas. In the words of Jesus:
Today, I want you to simply sit, forget everything on your list for a few minutes. Be still before God and worship in your waiting. Got a few minutes? Listen to 1 song. Got a few more? Listen to another.
Take a few minutes and be desperate, be passionate, be overcome with joy, or simply BE in solitude before the living God.
After you experience it - take it to your families.
Maybe dinner tonight starts with silence and listening to a song. Yeah, you'll all be at the table together, but helping our kids have a little inward solitude before God and practicing that as a family would change dinnertime, don't you think?
Now, go be still...
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