Calm Or Frantic?

December 18, 2024

We’re a week out from Christmas Day. Some of us may be ramping up and some may be ramping down. I’m writing this a little early, but I believe the forecast for me and my wife is that we are ramping down. We did a pretty good job this year of taking care of a lot of Christmas “business” early. We’d hoped to get things done so that we could relax a little the week before Christmas.

Of course, “best laid plans” happens to us all the time. But we need not become frantic if we’ve planned to have a time of calm around the holidays and it doesn’t come to fruition.

Calm or Frantic? #hope #joy #writingcommunity Share on X

It could be that you are beyond frantic.

Maybe as hard as you’ve tried to get ahead of things, you just seem to be more behind. Or it could be that an unexpected trial has entered your life right here only weeks or days before Christmas.

Let’s look at how God dealt with someone else who had an unexpected trial in their life.

King Hezekiah was known as a God-following king in the Old Testament. He did what was good and right and faithful before the Lord his God. His father was the wicked King Ahaz and after Ahaz died, Hezekiah cleaned house. He got rid of all the idols, altars, and temples used to worship idols. God faithfully took good care of Hezekiah.

At some point, Hezekiah became ill and Isaiah, the prophet, told him to get his affairs in order because he was about to die. Hezekiah had not planned to get sick. He was well on his way to living a prosperous and happy life. But this unexpected trial entered his life.

Hezekiah prayed to God to remember him. God listened and gave Isaiah the following message to share with Hezekiah.

“This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you.” (Hezekiah 20:5, NIV)

In this instance, God chose to extend Hezekiah’s life fifteen years. That was the right thing to do in God’s eyes.

We have great hope in knowing that like Hezekiah, God sees what is happening with us and He hears our prayers. We also know that He will do the exact right thing in our situation, too. He may not heal us. Or remove our trial. He may choose to give us peace in whatever is causing us to be frantic this season.

But we know that He sees, and He hears.

I pray God will provide whatever you need this Christmas to experience the calm He wants you to have as we prepare to celebrate the coming of His Son to earth to save us from eternal separation from Him.