Christmas Hymn

You have my permission to use the following song
I wrote for your Christmas celebration or worship.
It’s sung to the public domain tune “Immortal, Invisible”
I would appreciate it if you’d let me know you used the song
and give me credit with my name and web site —
” Copyright 2001 by David J. Claassen — http://www.daveclaassen.com “

It’s Christmas, it’s Christmas, a time of great joy,
A stable, a manger, the birth of a boy.
The leaving of heaven to earth He came down,
Relinquishing glory and heaven’s great crown.

The stars on that dark night were lost in the light
As heaven’s great chorus to earth took their flight.
Amazed were the angels at what God had done;
They let loose with praise for the gift of the Son.

God’s heaven was emptied of His only Son.
The shepherds, in awe, to the village did run.
The wise men, they came from a distance so far,
To worship the Christ Child, announced by a star.

It’s Christmas, it’s Christmas, a time to rejoice.
To make Him our King is our very own choice.
None other, none other we hail as our King;
His praises forever and ever we’ll sing!

Copyright 2001 by David J. Claassen
(Sung to the tune of “Immortal, Invisible”)

A Photovotional — Warming Up to God

The accompanying photo shows me trying to communicate spiritual truth to a snowman. He may look like he’s smiling but, truth be told, I’m getting a cool reception, a downright cold shoulder! Maybe I have him snowed; his eyes looked glazed over, don’t they? OK, enough of this silliness. When I took this picture in Iowa it was really cold. I mean really cold! Thankfully, while my wife Diann quickly took the picture the snowman cooperated and never moved a muscle, an icicle, whatever. We dashed inside to get warm (the two of us, not the snowman).

Sometimes I set up a picture to communicate a message, as was the case here. People can be cool to receiving input, and that includes spiritual input. Putting it more personally, it’s good to reflect on just how open we are to letting God get through to us.

This is the first week in Advent, Advent being the period of time beginning the fourth Sunday before Christmas (which was last Sunday). Advent is viewed as a time of preparation, to get ready to celebrate Christmas.

As awesome and humongous and glorious as God is, He will not impose Himself on us. Perhaps His greatest miracle is the ability to hide Himself from us when we really don’t want to find Him! He gives us the freedom and space to do with Him as we want. Even if we’re really serious about Him there are still a great many distractions and attractions we have to deal with and overcome in order to sensitize ourselves to His presence and working.

The Practice of the Presence of God is a small volume of the collected teachings of 17^th century monk, Brother Lawrence. During this Advent season how about joining me in practicing the presence of God?

How can we do this? You know, I think I’m just going to leave that an open ended question. The Good Lord will help each of us figure out just how we might open ourselves up to Him. Let’s not be a Frosty the Snowman when it comes to faith! Instead, let’s warm up to the idea of a closer experience of God this Christmas season.