Like this:

Christmas is a magical time.  It’s a time when people believe in the good in others, and it’s a time when words like faith, or believing in what is not seen, seem a little more practical.  I think most of us get back a little piece of that wonderful way we looked at the world as children.  Things were so much simpler then.  My biggest problem was trying to stay out of my parent’s closet, where I knew my presents were hidden!  I was not very successful at this, but I learned valuable life lessons, like if you get caught, you parents will return all your presents.  I never got caught again.  ;)

It’s a time when Santa somehow makes it to the home of every single good girl and boy in the entire world, slips down their chimney (whether they have one or not), and leaves the exact present they dreamed of.  Children wholeheartedly accept this as absolute truth, which got me to thinking:  If a little child can so easily believe an absurd (no offense) story like Santa Clause, without too much effort from adults, then what does the story of Jesus’s birth, life on earth, and resurrection look like to a child?

The Bible tells us over and over to have faith like a child.  The magic of Santa has certainly worn off and disappeared for me.  OK, to be honest, it never really existed.  I was a non-Santa kid, but that’s beside the point.  Has the magic of the Gospel message worn off and disappeared from my life as well?  Has it become just a story that I know and believe intellectually, but no longer see and experience the way a child would?  Am I even capable of looking at it with the same awe, wonder, and unfailing belief that a child would? 

I don’t have all those answers yet, but this Christmas, my goal is to try to find that magic again.  I hope that, as I share the Christmas story with my son, I can see God through his eyes, and experience a piece of that child-like faith.  I want to live in complete amazement and delight with my Creator and Savior.  There is no better “magical” story than the Christmas story.   If you’re reading this, and you have young children, please take this moment in their lives to share the real Christmas story with them, so they have a chance to experience true child-like faith in God, uncomplicated by all or our adult concerns and logic.

The real magic of Christmas is and always has been Jesus.

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