The Practice of Presence

Written by: Nicole Howe

Take a moment to recall a favorite Christmas memory. Maybe it’s a Christmas from your childhood when the season still felt alive and enchanted with hope and wonder. Maybe it’s a time you surprised someone with a gift they had long wished for. Maybe it’s the joy of your favorite Christmas song, the taste of your grandmother’s cookie recipe, or a warm house full of twinkling lights and piles of snow-drenched shoes by the front door. Or maybe it’s the twinkling eyes of all the people you love.

Christmas can be a special time. But, it can also be complicated. While the season holds so much possibility for wonder, joy, and hope, we often walk into it carrying some degree of weariness, grief, distraction, or even shame. We may try hard to re-create the magic of those treasured Christmas memories, yet for all our efforts it can feel like the joy of the season still somehow passes us by.

If you’re ever seen the movie, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” you know it’s a classic tale about how we can lose our way in the bustle of the holiday season. We might relate to Cindy Lou Who, looking out into the cold winter world and asking, “Where are you, Christmas?”

But what if Christmas is less about finding than it is about being found? Maybe while we are searching for the perfect Christmas, Jesus is searching for us - in all our imperfection.

After all, the true Christmas story is the culmination of a God who’s been looking for us from the very beginning, a God who runs after us when shame, weariness, or grief make us want to hide. Just like He went searching for the very first humans.

In Genesis 3:8-9 (ESV), we read:

“And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

“Where are you, Adam?”

God asks His own question. He goes looking for us, even when we hide ourselves from His presence. He finds us, even when we do not feel worthy of being found. He pursues us because He longs to be with us.

He’s been searching for us from the very beginning.

Take a few moments now to watch this short film by Wonderhunt, All This Way, on the lengths a father will go to be with a child he loves.

Notice how the father would stop at nothing to be with his child. He knew what she needed long before she knew herself. Immanuel, God with us. This is what the good news of the Christmas season is all about.

Come back tomorrow as we explore what keeps us from experiencing God’s presence and why it’s sometimes hard to trust that God will find us.

Reflection: Is there a child-like part of you longing to be found? Perhaps you might invite God into that space and ask Him to meet you there, trusting His desire to be with you. If this is hard to do, consider God’s compassion for you even as you struggle to open yourself up to His love. Rest knowing He’s ready to meet you right where you are, wherever it is.

Prayer: God, thank you that You run after us, even when we feel like we don’t deserve it. It can be difficult to trust that You really do love us that much. Would you help me to experience You in this way? In my darkest moments, would You lift my eyes to sense Your loving presence? This Christmas, help me to rest knowing I don’t have to strive to make everything perfect, but that You love me even in my imperfection. Thank you, God, for loving us enough to go all the way to the ends of the earth to be with us. May we know that you are ever present, ever near, ever searching. Amen.