I always love the Christmas Season. Without a doubt, it is my favorite time of the year. Everyone is usually more cheerful and giving. Children are excited. I even enjoy the hustle and bustle of busy shopping days and fighting over parking spaces. There's just something magical about Christmas.
As a young child, I couldn't wait for Christmas to arrive. I had Christmas with both Grandmother's and then my parents. At each stop, I got ready for another round of presents and goodies. It just didn't get any better than that.
I always enjoyed going to celebrate Christmas at my maternal Grandmothers house, even though I sometimes didn't understand her Christmas decorating style. As much as I enjoyed admiring Christmas decorations and lights and ornaments, I never understood what my Grandmother saw in her particular artificial Christmas Tree that she showed off each and every year.
I'm probably showing my age here a little, but her particular Christmas Tree was solid Silver. I hated it. Christmas trees are supposed to be Green, not Silver. It just didn't look right, sitting in her big picture window. I tried to endure the agony though because, as a child, I certainly didn't want to jeopardize any presents that might be coming my way.
What really made the tree hard to love was the fact that she had this motorized Color Wheel, with a spotlight, shining through the colors on the wheel on to the tree. The color wheel was divided into four colors: red, orange, green, and blue. As the motorized Color Wheel turned round and round, the spotlight shined through the particular color on the color wheel. The Wheel took about 30 seconds to make one revolution, so during that 30 seconds, the tree changed colors from red to orange to green to blue. Yuck. It was supposed to be green all the time, in my opinion. It was as if the tree couldn't make up its mind what color it wanted to be.
As I think about times in my life and how I lived my life as a Christian, I often times changed my "Christian Colors." At work, I might act one way. At home, I might act a different way. With certain friends, I might act still a different way. I wasn't always consistent. I changed to fit the circumstance and, I believe, that is exactly what gives Christianity such a bad reputation to many in the world. We're not consistent.
I made a commitment many years ago to be consistent. Now, I'm not perfect and certainly have not always lived up to that commitment, but I consistently pray for God's strength to enable me to be a consistent witness to the world in everything I do. I don't want to be like my Grandmother's Christmas Tree that changes from Red to Yellow to Green to Blue. I want to be a consistently bright light in all that I do.
Are you consistent in your Christian Life, or are you ever changing "colors?"
"Lord, give me the strength to lead a consistent Christian Life. Help me to be the same person at work, at home, and with friends so that others will see a genuine Christian love in my own life."
