God Bless Us Everyone

We just finished up the series, "From a Humbug to a Hallelujah" in church. Today, we talked about after we have made this decision to be joyful during the holiday season, how do you carry it on? How does it go past the holiday season and continue on into everyday life? What does it look like to make a New Years resolution internally? We have all these ideas of losing weight, going to church more, doing better in school, physical resolutions....what about internal? The things that really matter. Changing our character, how people view us. He showed the ending clip of A Christmas Carol, where it talks about how no one celebrates Christmas quite like Scrooge and Tiny Tim requotes his line, "God bless us, everyone."

Every one. The true meaning of Christ. Every one.

I think back to the scene in the movie where Ebeneezer give thanks for Mr. Scrooge for "providing this fine feast" and his wife is upset because Mr. Scrooge is nothing but a grumpy self centered old man. This is where the first Tiny Tim line comes in, God bless us, every one. I separate the "every one" to make a point. Every one meaning, no one is left out. It is not a blessing of only some people, the people who deserve it, but every single person. This is a hard concept for a human being to grasp. A concept of asking for all people to be blessed and not just the ones they like. Asking for God to help all those in need of it and not just those who deserve it. To live selflessly in the sense of being humble enough to ask this. I think about this in my own life, what does this mean? What does it mean for me to ask God to help those who I might not want to see helped? To ask him to protect those who have hurt me? Even to ask for salvation for those who need it? Yes, this is a fictional character in a play, but we can definitely learn from this fictional character.

"Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way. "
Colossians 3:16-18

Every detail.