The First Songs of ChristmasSample

What if this Christmas season we were to take every opportunity the Lord gives us to share a personal testimony with someone else about the “great things” He has done for us?

For many of us, that challenge may be outside of our comfort zone. We fear making others (or ourselves) feel awkward or uneasy. Or perhaps, truth be told, we just feel as though any “great things” God may be doing in our lives are outnumbered by all the other, not-so-great things we’re enduring right now.

I’m glad that Christian faith does not require us to ignore or minimize our hurts, to act as if they don’t exist or as if they shouldn’t bother us. Pain, hardship, and heartache are unavoidable parts of our fallen world, even for believers. Our redemption, of course, has already been accomplished through the cross and empty tomb, but our experience of it in real time is not complete. We don’t yet know the unhindered joy we will one day feel when we are visibly in God’s presence, away from all traces of the curse, with all things made new.

But if you’re a child of God, no matter what may be going on in your life, you can lift your eyes upward from your circumstances.

Even if your eyes are legitimately, understandably filled with tears, God is still doing “great things” for you—great things worthy of your notice and worship, great things worthy of being told and talked about.

Mary probably had a million questions about what was happening to her. How was she supposed to handle this pregnancy? How could she tell her parents? How did God expect her to get through this? 

Perhaps she laid out all these concerns to Elizabeth during the months she stayed at her house. But what we know for certain is that Mary embraced even her fears and apprehensions as an opportunity to exalt the Lord. And she not only felt the praise and gratitude in her own heart, but also expressed it verbally so that others could hear it and be blessed. She was overwhelmed that a holy God would notice her, that He would give her the privilege of playing a part in the story of redemption, even when that mission involved hardship on her part.

Her song was her testimony. What’s yours?