December Anxiety

"The month of December can easily become hectic with a time of heightened anxiety. Buying Christmas gifts, planning Christmas parties, deciding where the family is going to gather, what to prepare for the menu, and increased financial pressures, are all common sources of anxiety and stress. Loneliness can also be magnified at Christmas as our culture has encouraged individuals to become more disconnected from family and community. No matter your burden during the Christmas season, there is no one who loves you and will carry your burden like Jesus! In fact, the Bible actually commands us to give our problems to God. To refuse to cast our cares upon God places us at odds with Jesus who loves us more than we love ourselves. I have been pondering (1 Peter 5:5-7) today where it says "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humility is essential to developing a habit of constantly giving God all of our cares. Jesus taught us in the first Beatitude to be poor in spirit; which means to understand our absolute need for God for everything we do. For we need Jesus in order to even exist at all! This Christmas season may we be reminded that our mindset of casting all our cares on God comes from knowing God for who He is. True humility is revealed by our ability to cast our care upon Him. Pride presumes that we must take things into our own hands when God promised to take care of everything. Notice (Matthew 6:31-34)! God is the solution to every problem we may have. For when we seek to know God for who He is, we naturally give Him all our burdens."