The day God cried. A Christmas Story.

For the first time this year, I created a advent that me and my husband can do with our children. Since this is our first year as a family to doing this, we are kind of at the awkward beginning stage of two teenagers wondering why we are suddenly trying to start a new Christmas tradition and two toddlers who keep asking questions as I read the chosen scriptures. So the average time has been about eight minutes together. (deep sigh)

This evening as I read the chosen scripture to my family (Matthew 1:23) and asked the question of reflection: “What is one specific thing that makes you feel like God is with you.”

My kids asked for an example to the question. As I was giving it, they noticed I was rambling a bit of all the different times I have felt God with me. They snickered and remarked that they got my point. I then asked them the question again. They responded with short answers of how they feel God is with them.

To be honest, I was a bit hurt and discouraged. I thought to myself, “I just want us as a family to not forget what Jesus Christ did for us. I don’t want to forget that He was not only born but that he also died for us. What else can be better than to celebrate this with my children?! The children that who will rise up to be the next generation to follow Christ.” (In my strong mom voice, I declare it!)

But you know what happened….

The Lord convicted me.

My children’s answers were not short answers. They were simplified of how they saw God in their lives.

My children see God. They know Him and most of all they know our home stands on the foundation of Him.

This Christmas Advent is our reminder of who is He is, not an obligation to make them get to know Him.

How we vision our Lord the day in the manager when He was born and how He was on the crossed when He died for us is our own intimate vision of Him. Our relationship with Him and reading His word gives us affirmation of what it was.

What is beautiful about it all is that no vision that stands biblically for the love of Christ is wrong. It is of our own intimate grasps of who God is to us. It is our own experience with Him that gives us the awe of who He is in our lives!

When we share our vision of who God is to us and how we see Him we are sharing the testament of the relationship we are building with God.

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. 1 Corinthian 2:1-5 ESV

Sheryl’s post at Simply Scripture is a beautiful description of it. Her written words were not of lofty speech or wisdom but just of the power of God. The power of seeing all that Christ represented the day He cried for the first time in that manager. A vision of what one small child cried for as He took his first breath of life on this earth. The cry that gave us life.

This week Salt & Light Link Up Feature:

When God Cried.

SimplyScripture.org

Baby Jesus cried like any other human baby. Being born brings pain. What was His first breath of earthly air like? Were His cries simply from the rush of cold, dusty night air, as His lungs opened for the first time, or were those wailing and whimpering infant cries holding more? I think they were.

God Himself, as a human baby, cried in the manger. What could the tears of God be for? Cries for Redemption drawing near. Cries for Salvation becoming a reality. Tears for the souls of millions of sinners who would be made right, and tears for the millions who would refuse. Did baby Jesus cry because He knew the cross was His reason for living, and for dying?

God cried in the manger.

Was it also a cry of spiritual warfare? Wouldn’t that be just like God to have a newborn cry, rally all of the heavenly armies to the epic battle of the ages? With the cry of a little baby, all of heaven shook with wonder and praise, while the demons shuddered. That is our God, sending Jesus to cry in feeding trough, surrounded by dirty animals. The perfect, spotless Lamb of God, born in a barn-bawling. God sent the Savior of the world, screaming into the arms of a young, virgin girl and whimpering in the arms of a man who wasn’t His real…..