Forget Trying to Capture the Spirit of the Season: Do this Instead

Loneliness May Be Your Reality, But I... Before You Put Up Your Christmas Tree...

Forget Trying to Capture the Spirit of the Season: Do this Instead

When I turn around in the round-about of our little country town, and head down main street, there’s this white banner, painted with a flurry of snowflakes, strung up across the street, and I drive right under this scrolled script font that reads:

“Capture the Spirit of the Season…”

And I’m the one caught, snagged on a completely different notion that strikes like a bit of a glorious epiphany:

What if you didn’t have to capture anything, neither the spirit of this season nor anything else — but simply accepted the invitation to just slow down enough to let the Spirit captivate you this season?

Because: When you try to capture the spirit of the season, it’s your joy that can actually get caught in the trap.

When you’re racing around trying to capture the spirit of the season, you’re the one that can get caught up in all these trappings, that leave you actually missing out.

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I meet a friend at our small town bakery and we linger over a cup of coffee and laugh ridiculously loud and it feels like relief.

The laundry’s still not folded that evening, but I go ahead and light candles with our littlest girl. I press pause on all my interior overthinking that’s always in overdrive, and match her silly grin when she asks for another slice of pie, her eyes dancing happy. We curl in with the Story and this is the way.

“We don’t have to capture any spirit of the season – we simply get to surrender to the Spirit.“

You don’t have to race after, hunt down, or capture any of the Spirit of the Season — because there’s the Holy Spirit who never stops coming after us, chasing us down, with goodness and mercy (Psalm 23). It’s the Spirit “who gives life… The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life,” whispers Jesus, the Word, who is the gift who comes. (John 6:63)

We don’t have to capture any spirit of the season – we simply get to surrender.

Surrender the pressures of the season, surrender the imposed overwhelm, surrender all the impossible expectations, surrender all the soul-crushing hustle and bustle, and simply surrender to the Spirit and wonders of His grace.

Because ultimately? All true spiritual growth is about truly surrendering and letting go. The very antithesis of chasing to capture anything — spiritual growth is always in the surrender. Surrender all the pressures that threaten to capture you and drag you away from joy and Him, and surrender to giving time to the Story of God and the Spirit who frees us to astonishing wonder and awe.

“…when we surrender all the pressures that are pushing and hurrying us past the wonder and awe and the presence of God — then wisdom captures us, and joy holds us, and God binds our hearts to Him and we are free to truly experience the wholeness and holiness of the season! “

She opens the pages of the Wonder of the Greatest Gift again and her eyes open wide all over again. I open pages of The Greatest Gift who is coming again, and I feel my hope rising all over again. This is the soft place her and I choose to land:

We aren’t going to let this season be about any frantic, futile chasing, trying to capture what’s endlessly evasive; His words are spirit and life, and we are going to rest and stay in the Story of God, so we don’t miss Him.

The wonder of the season, of all our being, is in His sure Word.

And what I can’t get over every time I open His Story, open the pages of His Love Story, and this is what captures my heart:

You have to open the door of wonder – to get to real wisdom.

That’s what not one of us can afford to miss this season:

If you want to grow in wisdom, you’ve got to grow in wonder.

Wonder that none of this old world is an accident, wonder that this is a miraculously and supernaturally visited planet, wonder that the One who is the Breather of stars folded into a virgin’s womb, so He could come and breathe saving hope into you.

Wonder that God’s coming, and He’s coming to dwell in you, and He’s coming again to make all our heartbreak come untrue.

Wonder again like a child, and you get to come close to Him.

Wonder opens the door to the wisdom we’re all looking for.

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When she opens up the Wonder of the Greatest Gift, and that pop-up tree rises again, and she starts opening the Advent flaps to discover the wee hanging ornaments that will tell all over again, the story of His coming, right from the beginning of time — I feel it like the safest embrace:

No matter what stories are unfolding around us in the world, this is the story we are staying in; this is the story – the story of the family tree of God, the story of Jesus’ love coming for us through every ancient story in His Word, the story of His grace meeting all the people in all kinds of messed up places — the greatest love story ever told.

When we stay in the whole Story of the gift of His coming — we are made whole by His presence right here.

And when we surrender all the pressures that are pushing and hurrying us past the wonder and awe and the presence of God — then wisdom captures us, and joy holds us, and God binds our hearts to Him and we are free to truly experience the wholeness and holiness of the season!

“When we stay in the whole Story of the gift of His coming — we are made whole by His presence right here. “

A pile of clean laundry is still in a basket in my room, drowsing contented.

The mudroom is literally and boldly living up to its name — and I’m trying to just grin and shrug my shoulders about it!

The dog chewed a hole in the wall in the garage. I need to clear the last of the wilting, weedy flowerbeds out before the first of the snow flies cold.

But even still? I still get to light candles, I still get to still my interior world. I still get to unwrap the whole story and the gift of His coming and all His grace in the present moment as my very own present.

When I find myself driving back into town to pick up some whip cream for our littlest girl who’s looking for an extra dollop of wonder and sweet, I smile with the relief of it all and want to string up another banner that reads:

“Surrender to His Spirit this Season…and win the wonder of wisdom, the joy of now, and all the awe of God!”

Who knows if the weather forecasters will get it right if it will be a white Christmas this year or not… but there’s this happy relief that we can always slow and surrender to staying in the Story that always makes the holidays gloriously bright.

This year, let His wonder awaken you again, captivate you, capture your heart! More Of Jesus Only — and have a STRESS-FREE, WONDER-FULL Christmas.Read the whole Christmas Love Story, from Creation to the Creche, with all 3 of our Advent Christmas Books: