Well, welcome back to another podcast of Struggling Well and as you yet this we're about 19 days, something like that.
19 days in counting and ticking away really quickly.
And ticking away really quickly.
Until what? Until Christmas. Exactly.
Until Christmas. And so
with this time of the year comes all kinds of cards with pictures of families.
We've already we started getting some the end of November.
Yeah, we got them early this year. Last year they seem like they came late. This year seems like they come early.
Well, I always judge how many friends we have left by how many cards we get. And the year that it's low is really sad. So y'all send cards whether you know us or not. Cards and pictures.
So then the question is going to be, are we sending out one?
No. But do you remember how for so many years we got a card and a picture from a family we'd never met before? For like 5 years they sent us. Who were they? Do you know?
I don't.
I don't either.
I don't either. But there was I think that's back in the days when
I pastored a local church.
I guess
people felt obligated. I don't know. But you know the interesting thing is And also comes sometimes with the cards come Christmas letters.
And the interesting thing about both are it's never presented like life really happens. I mean,
tell me one card we've ever gotten where the kids are crying, the husband and wife have had a fight and it's out. No, it's the perfect family on that card in that picture. And it's great. It's great.
We love the pictures. We love the letters also,
but it's also, you know, the letters is like, can you imagine? I just started thinking about this. recently and what would it have looked like if the Apostle Paul had sent out a Christmas letter?
Oh, here it goes. Dear family and friends, we don't want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experience in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despared of life. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will continue to deliver us. And then he goes on to talk about how crushed they were. Where where's that portion?
it's later in the in second Corinthians.
I mean, what a happy little letter that would have been.
Yeah. I mean, but you know, can you imagine if he had sent out a Christmas letter? He couldn't say, "Dear brothers and sisters across a all of Asia, I'm doing great. Life's been good. Life's been special." But he gets down to the reality of his life. And again, maybe your year has been absolutely fantastic. I don't know. But can you send something out? Because the reason why he says all those things is he said so that you can pray for us. And I think that there's a sense in which when we open ourselves up and become vulnerable to all that's going on in our lives and what God is doing, it does open up the opportunity for somebody to pray for us.
Right? And I think the important thing if we go back to Paul is he wanted them to know that they were in such utter despair and feeling so perplexed about what was happening, what was happening to him, all the situations he was in. But it was all to point back to who God was and how God sustained him and rescued him. Not in the I mean, they were shipwrecked. Boom. But that God was merciful and compassionate and when I think about our Christmas letters, and again, we're sort of tongue and cheek here, but what would it be like to have a Christmas letter that talked about some of the struggles that we were in the midst of and yet the sentences would follow but God what God did not pouring praise on what we did but on what God did.
Yeah.
The other side of it Suzi is that it points to Christ and points to God and what he does. But then the other part of it is it I think it opens us up to deeper and more real community
which the Christian life is all about community.
in my opinion. it's the way that we read the New Testament in particular in our western context as individuals.
Mhm.
but the New Testament was written in the context of community everywhere. So we've somehow lost that sense of I can let you into my life and into my world enough not so that you have all the salacious details of something but that you could join with me in the struggle that I have. as we point it back to Christ.
Why do you think it is that people veer away from that?
Well, I think our culture is a huge contributing factor to it is that we're a very individualistic culture and we either share we either carry our burdens all to ourselves, which is typical. And if we share our the positives, it's really a lot of times to point things back to us. Look at how great I am. Look at how much I've done. Look at how much I've accomplished. And so it's really directing praise back towards who I am. as opposed to realizing that even when I see the successes in life or the positives in life, it really is what Christ has done.
Yeah. So I think this year as we are sending and receiving beautiful cards and letters and making lots of preparations for celebrating the birth of Christ. I think it's also an important time for us to be authentic before him. I my mind just quickly went to the actual birth of Christ and what Mary and Joseph had to go through to get a place to give birth. And it has all been so commercialized and beautified and we know that where they were was nothing. It was just a cave with straw and there were animals. And what happens with animals is there's they smell and yet we've made it to be this pristine scene. Mary and Joseph were feeling a lot of things. they were young. I'm sure that Mary was scared. She was a teenage girl and so as we look at the scene of Christmas and Jesus birth, I hope that we will be able to look beyond a scene into the actual heart of what was happening. The very difficult parts which started when you know the angel came to Mary and said you know you're going to bear the son of God and she was just a kid and she said you know as you have willed so it should be that's my translation.
and then Joseph got hit up with you know your fiance who you've not had any intimate relationship with is going to have a baby and all that came around that all the honest fear and embarrassment and shame and what do I do with this and but there's something so far more significant of what was happening. It wasn't just their emotions. It was that God was working in a very difficult scenario and asking these people, these young people in particular to trust him.
Yeah. And so next week when we come back, we're going to look at that story as it's told in scripture. over the next couple weeks. In fact, we're going to do that. And we're going to also look at a place where I think the Christmas story is told that we don't necessarily think it's told. So, we'll welcome you back next week. Have a good day. Thanks for joining us. To learn more about the Struggling Well podcast, visit tandemspirituality. com.