As we lead up to Christmas and life is getting hectic with Christmas cheer, I’ve decided to use the blog to share some very small, short seasonal thoughts for you.
Santa, Rudolph, and Snoopy were lying there on the ground, face down, emaciated, completely deflated. And it is still 12 days until Christmas! What’s the deal?
That was my question as I was walking through our neighborhood this morning, looking at all the inflatables lying shrunken and withered in front of otherwise normal households.
The Christmas messages were all still in place. The electronic clock at one high-tech house was still counting down the seconds until Christmas, but there were the Christmas heroes—wasted!
And just last night, they had been bright, cheery, and all pumped up!
“Pumped up!” That’s when the similarity occurred to me: am I just like Santa?? Do some of us go to church or small group or BSF or camp or . . . and get all pumped up, but the minute the sun comes up, we wither in the daylight?
Jesus talked about the seeds that fell on shallow dirt, took root, but then withered in the day’s heat! His parable holds together better than my deflated Santa Clauses, but I think it is pretty much the same point.
Inflatable Christians make a sad scene. Sure, they look great when they are all pumped up, but what’s the message when we lie face down, deflated by the normalcy of the world we live in?
I keep thinking about the opposite of these inflatables being something solid. The Hebrew writer talked about solid food being for the mature (5:14) and encouraged his hearers to eat solid food!
OK, that’s as far as we will go with this idea: If you find yourself deflated, check your diet and make sure you are not just filling up on emotions or relationships or self-indulgence or anything less than the solids that God offers you!
Mark's Blog 
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