Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

Christmas decorations appear in stores about the time Halloween ends, and it feels like they keep arriving earlier each year. Who knows, perhaps we’ll someday be preparing for Christmas around the Fourth of July. I have met people who have hardly ever entered a church who enthusiastically proclaim, “I love Christmas.” Christmas may be the most prepared-for day on the calendar. 

For those who follow Jesus the Christ, their preparation for Christmas begins with the season of Advent, which is a time of awaiting the coming of the Christ child. The name Advent was adopted from Latin adventus, translated as coming or arrival. For Christians, it is a sacred time when we prepare our spirits for his arrival.

From the word Advent also springs the word adventure. Imagine considering that there are adventures of faith for you. What would an adventure of faith look like? How would life be different if you actively chose to pursue an encounter with the Divine? To help prepare for those adventures of faith, consider four ways to prepare spiritually for Christmas.

FIRST, start your day differently than most people. Most people wake up and after tending to biological needs, turn to the computer (or tablet or phone) to check emails, calendar, texts, news, weather, social media, sports, stocks, and world and political events. That is not the best way to start a day… depressed by news, overwhelmed by calendar and to-do lists, needing to respond to people wanting something, and feeling required to keep busy, keep up, and hurry. If everyone starts their day that way, imagine what it is like to go to work when everyone feels hurried, harried, a bit down, somewhat discouraged, and busy, busy, busy? Now, what if you start your day differently than most people? Instead of rushing to serve the electronic masters, what if you began with a contemplative practice which centers your spirit to engage the coming day with joy, peacefulness, and contentment? How to do that?

Instead of starting your day the same as most people, what if you centered your soul on a key biblical theme? For example, what if you started your day with the attitude “My cup runneth over” (Psalm 23:5 KJV)? Let those words soak into your pores and guide your thoughts, attitudes, and behavior throughout the day as you repeat them silently. Cup is a metaphor for your life, for all that you are, and all that you have. You have heard how a pessimist says “My cup is half empty” and an optimist says “My cup is half full.” A person of faith says “My cup runneth over.” These are the most powerful four words of gratitude ever written. You rarely see a grateful person who is an unhappy person. When you start your day with the attitude “My cup runneth over,” it changes how you see things, it changes your preparation for Christmas from harried to holy, and that shapes how your day will go.

SECOND, go out of your way to practice goodwill towards others. On December 24, 1967, the day before Christmas, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a Christmas sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta where he proclaimed that “the Christmas hope for peace and goodwill toward all men can no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian. If we don’t have goodwill toward men in this world, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own instruments and our own power.” The world today badly needs every candle of goodwill to light the way. In these days of wars, hatred, injustices, divisiveness, and cultural changes, practicing goodwill towards others becomes a candle we can shine in the darkness.

Consider performing acts of kindness, actions which reflect the love of Christ. Start your day with a determination to look for ways to perform acts of kindness. Meditate on kindness as a foundation building block of faith and religion. Blessed are those who are born kindly. For many, kindness does not come naturally. We have to work at it, think about it, determine to practice it, and search for opportunities to exercise it. To love kindness is one of the three things the Lord requires of us (Micah 6:8). Kindness is one of nine fruits of the spirit (Galatians 5:22, 23), indicating that when God’s spirit dwells within, kindness radiates outward, and when kindness is in short supply, it is an indication that more of God’s spirit needs to be invited in. The Apostle Paul equated love with being “patient and kind.” During your spiritual anticipation of Christmas, prepare to go out into the company of others with an eye towards practicing kindness and goodwill.

THIRD, embrace intentional silence. Teach yourself to appreciate silence. Sit in silence. Mother Teresa wrote that “God is the friend of silence. We need to find God and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness. See how nature, the trees, the flowers, the grass grow in perfect silence — see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence. The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life. Silence gives us a new outlook on everything.”[i] Silence gives you a new outlook on everything. Consider the classic poem, Desiderata: “Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.” Why not choose to go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence? In your spiritual preparation for Christmas, embrace daily moments of silence.

FOURTH, practice a new way of fasting. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught, “And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:16-18). Perhaps we should reconsider the value of this spiritual discipline. The purpose of fasting is to seek to know God in a deeper experience. This would appeal only to people of faith who desire to know God better and to love God more, especially in a season of preparing for the coming of the Christ child. Fasting need not be restricted to food. Fasting need not be for forty days. It might be for forty minutes, or even four.

There are many things from which you could fast:

-Fast from the phone.

-Fast from the computer, the tablet, the data plan.

-Fast from television.

-Fast from your schedule.

-Fast from worry and regret.

-Fast from doing more than one thing at a time.

-Fast from trying to please everybody.

-Fast from indulging every want.

-Fast from a conflict.

-Fast from dealing with a problem that won’t quit.

-Fast from having to be in charge.

We will happily fill our homes with the sights, sounds, and smells of Christmas, but we can also fill our souls with the brief and simple practice of four spiritual preparations.