Celebrating Simplicityنموونە

Celebration Is a Way of Life, Not an Occasion

Everyone, regardless of age, can personify with the passage from Isaiah: little children, teenagers, adults, healthy or infirm, rich or poor—everyone. There are so many ideas that you can do to lift up and comfort someone else or brighten the day of another person. May baskets, carved pumpkins, plates of Christmas cookies, Easter baskets, festive napkins at dinner, picnics, homemade cards and handwritten notes, and on and on. There are books and Internet sites galore with ideas on how to make each day, each moment, holy and special, lived in gratitude to God.

The discipline of celebration isn’t an occasional party. It is a daily attitude, a way of living and thinking that can include periodic planned celebrations but ultimately is a joyful life of gratitude. It is a strong statement of faith in the midst of a world that can be downright ugly at times. The discipline of celebration is knowing, deep down, every day, that Jesus Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Adapted from Spiritual Disciplines Devotional: A Year of Readings. Copyright © 2007 by Valerie E. Hess. Used by permission. For more information, please visit https://www.ivpress.com/spiritual-disciplines-devotional