SACRED HOLIDAYS: A DEVOTIONAL LEADING UP TO CHRISTMASExemplo

DAY ONE: 

(Special Note: You can do this reading plan without advent candles, but your experience will be so much better if you use them. All you need is 5 candles—any size, any color, any type. You will light a candle each Sunday, beginning four Sundays before Christmas, and then you’ll light your final candle on Christmas Day. I will tell you when to light each candle in the plan, just keep reading. You can find more tips on how to use Advent Candles at SacredHolidays.com.) 

At Sacred Holidays we often use the phrase #LessChaosMoreJesus to remind ourselves of what we want to pursue each holiday. I am so excited for you—that you want to do this very thing. I’m praying that this Christmas season will be unlike any other you’ve experienced. This year, instead of fixing your eyes on the crazy, you will fix your eyes on Jesus—the Light that has come! 

Using Advent candles was one of my very first steps in choosing less chaos and more Jesus during the Christmas season. Those five candles serve as constant reminders of what Christmas is really about—celebrating that the Light of the world stepped down into our darkness. And you don’t have to throw away your other holiday traditions to do this. For example, all the whimsy and sentimental feelings you have for your twinkling Christmas tree will be amplified as you light your advent candles. 

Over the next few weeks as you watch darkness become light, I’m praying you allow the Lord to do the same in your heart—changing what feels dark into a bright light! 

Read Genesis 1:1-2. 

We start advent with unlit candles because before God created light, there was darkness over all the earth. The unlit candles are a reminder to us of what it is like to live in darkness and to be without God. 

If you are able, go into a space without light—maybe a bathroom or a closet—or close your eyes for a moment, and take the darkness in. 

What does the darkness feel like? The unknown, the uncertainty of what might be lurking in the shadows, and the inability to see what’s coming up ahead can be terrifying at times, can’t it? 

But even in the darkness, at the beginning of time, God was still there. 

Psalm 139:12 tells us that even darkness isn’t dark to God! Think about something in your life that feels dark. Maybe it’s a hard trial you're going through or a situation that feels so very heavy. Or maybe your darkness is a whole bunch of unknowns that you are facing. You can’t see where to step next, and that’s terrifying.

Psalm 139:12 tells us that “darkness is as light” to God. Your darkness—whether perceived or actual—Isn’t dark to God. He sees. He has always seen because He has always been. 

Wrap up today taking in the darkness of your candles. Ask the Lord to remind you what life was like apart from Him, without Him, before you came to know Him. 

Sign up at sacredholidays.com to be notified via email when it is time to revisit this plan four Sundays before Christmas.