One of my all-time favorite Christmas movies is, “A Christmas Story.” There are so many great scenes in this movie. There’s the scene where Ralph loses it and beats up the bully and starts swearing as he’s punching the kid. Or how about when the neighborhood dogs sneak inside their home and devour the turkey and the dad goes crazy. Or when the family gets a flat tire, dad has Ralph change it, and when a lug nut goes flying, Ralph says in slow motion… “Oooooooh fuuuuuuuudge” (but he doesn’t really say fudge, he says something else, and we all know what that word is.)
All of those scenes are great. But one of my all-time favorite scenes in that movie is when Ralph finally gets to see Santa to tell him what he wants for Christmas. As he approaches Santa the elves harass him to hurry up and are frankly just rude to him. The looks on their faces are ones of disgust. And when he finally makes it up to Santa, he’s practically thrown on Santa’s lap. And because of the pressure of the horrible elves, he can’t get his words out, so Santa says, “How about a football” and then promptly sends Ralph away from him down the slide. As he is being pushed down the slide, he stops himself, crawls back up to tell Santa exactly what he wants. Santa then tells him, “You’ll shoot your eye out kid.” And then promptly pushes him back down the slide with the bottom of his boot.
And I can’t help but wonder, how many of us approach God the same way. We walk up to God in a state of confusion wanting Him to desperately accept us. And as we approach Him, we hear all of these outside voices in our ears giving us the wrong picture of who God is. I wonder how many of us view God from the viewpoint of Ralph laying on that slide looking up towards Santa. And like Ralph, we work hard at getting back up the slide to just tell God our deepest need just to be pushed back down by the bottom of His boot.
I’ve been there. While I didn’t have these words at the time, this is exactly how I saw God. But as I’ve grown in my faith, I’ve come to know that this isn’t the God whom I serve. You see, we don’t have to work our way up to God. God Himself, came down to us. Check this out:
“And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.” – Luke 2:6-7
You see, in this one moment, Jesus, God Himself, came in the smallest, most helpless way possible… as a baby. The Creator of the world, the One who made humanity was now being held by the humans He Himself created. We don’t need to work our way to God, He came down to us. In fact, it’s not possible to work our way to God because God made a way for us to be with Him as a gift to us.
“God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.” – Ephesians 2:8-9
This salvation is the gift of God. It’s not a reward for how good we can work ourselves up to be. We don’t have to approach God as we might approach Santa hoping that He knows how good we’ve been so we get the gifts we want. It’s a gift of grace through faith in Jesus because we can never be good enough to receive it. It only comes through God’s kindness to us through the death of His Son, Jesus.
“But when God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior. Because of his grace he made us right in his sight and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life.” – Titus 3:4-7
So, my prayer for you this Christmas, is that you stop striving. Stop approaching God desperately hoping that you’ve been good enough for Him to see you and reward you. It’s exhausting because it isn’t possible. My prayer is that you approach God openly, as you accept His grace and through faith trust in His Son Jesus as the only One who can save you. He is the gift of grace in God’s kindness to us.
