Everything Good Comes From God

When I was a child, I had a step-father who would make a big deal out of Christmas. He would go out into the snowy woods and chop down the biggest and best tree that would fit into the house, make a mess by dragging it in, and happily mount it to the corner of our 6X8 living room. Of course, we were excited to decorate it with the same bulbs and trinkets year after year and with this he would build up the repeated expectation that Santa Claus was coming to town.

Unfortunately, we were extremely poor. One time, there were no gifts for me under that big tree. I wondered why Santa, whom I knew wasn’t real, hadn’t come to my house. I had such a deep expectation every year in the “magic” of Christmas even though I knew Santa wasn’t real. In contrast, I also had so much disappointment when there was only one or two cheap gifts buried beneath that huge tree.

I know he meant well, but it would have been better for my step-dad to go “Charlie Brown” on the tree so that the gifts looked bigger, but he never did.  I realize, looking back, that his perspective was to bring attention to the tree in hopes that it would minimize what was lacking beneath it.

One year, four, huge, Christmas-wrapped, refrigerator boxes filled with gifts were delivered to our house for Christmas. It came from some mission place like a Salvation Army. I was a teenager and it was the biggest Christmas that I ever had. People donated gifts out of the kindness of their hearts so that I and my siblings could receive them.

I tell you what, it certainly wasn’t Santa.

I will never forget either of those Christmases. Therefore, as an adult, I just couldn’t bring myself to teach my children about Santa Claus because it just wasn’t true. It was never true for me. So, I started teaching them about the real meaning of Christmas, which is the birth of Jesus Christ— and this happened before I got born again. I wanted to make sure that my children weren’t set up for a lie that Christmas was about a happy, bearded, fat guy and his magic sleigh coming to bring gifts that might not come.

Those people who gave gifts to my poor family had kindness in their hearts. Anyone who has any kindness in their heart has been touched by the God of good— even if they don’t know Him and refuse to get to know Him and believe. Everything good comes from the living God who is the original source of all things good.

And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. ~Genesis 1:31 KJV

Cite this article: Please update the Accessed or Retrieved date (September 13, 2015).