I clutch onto the candle, look at the glimmering lights of the tree, and I know what my heart needs most this Christmas and every Christmas.

His light to penetrate my dark.

Sometimes that’s painful. I spent many mornings this season, in front of this little tree with God, praying like He’s my only hope again. When exactly did that stop being true in my heart? It is in that stillness, that I hear him:

Believe.

I look at a baby tree and I think about baby Jesus, and how he didn’t come flashy, but small.  And He asks me – asks us all – in that same small voice, “Will you believe?”

I think the birth of a Christmas miracle starts here.  With our belief.

I’m with you girl – we all need miracles.  This season, my heart and mind needed a new hope.  When transitions got hard and questions started to swirl, I shrank back.  I resigned this season to press forward, boots on, look down.  The problem with looking down, though, is we stop looking up.  Stop looking for the miracle.

I don’t know what your miracle would be this Christmas, sister.  Maybe you have a relative who is sick, or finances are tight at home.  Or this dream that you’ve envisioned for so long is just not materializing.  Maybe you’ve slipped away from God, or you’re longing for a relationship or community.  Whatever your miracle is, my question to you is, do you actually believe that God’s power can really do anything?  That nothing is impossible with Him?

Living What You Believe

God showed me in front of our tree that I have confessed “yes” but I was living out the “no.”

The surest way to know what you believe?  Look at your life.  We all live what we believe.  There’s no way around it.

This is hard stuff.  But it’s Christmas!  And before we come before the manger with our incarnate miracle birthed there, we should ask what we really believe.

I listened to a talk recently from the If Gathering conference, where Rebekah Lyons challenged a whole group of women to “repent and believe.”  She asserted that it’s all over the Bible: before we can believe, we must repent.

If you just shuddered at the word repent, I did too.  It reminds me of legalistic teaching in church but it’s not that at all. Repenting is simply turning.  It’s not some big scary thing that keeps us from God. No,  it’s a humble stance that draws us back to Him. Rebekah encouraged me to turn back to God and say, I’m sorry.  Maybe it’s time we all say we’re sorry – for the ways we haven’t embraced Jesus.  For the places we just don’t believe.

Igniting Your Belief

I don’t know about you, but this Christmas, I want the glittering lights to reach the inside of this childlike heart, the one that knows that my God can do anything.  And He has already done everything.

I want to turn from everything that keeps my heart from running to Jesus.

Let’s turn together.  I’m praying for you, from across this screen, that God ignites your belief in Him this year, and fills your heart with His hope.  The hope that will never disappoint you:

“because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (Romans 5:5)

What is Christmas, if it isn’t a lavish invitation to be home in His love?

And to believe in the Baby who has changed all of our lives, who can keep changing us to be more like Him, who works miracles every day.

And who knows?  Maybe this year’s greatest miracles will be born in our hearts.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” (Romans 15:13)