12 Days of Christmas: Day Six

Welcome to Day Six of the 12 Days of Christmas: Godly Girl Version! Emma and I are back once again,  partnering with @em.graceful to bring to you this helpful series which highlights honoring God in this Christmas season as young women. We'd love to be praying for you over the next few weeks! Please drop a comment below, or contact us privately if you have a prayer request!

Day Six: Guarding Our Hearts

Instagram taunts you with friends’ cheerful news. Emma’s spending Christmas in London! Oliva’s window shopping downtown, hand in hand with her new boyfriend. Your phone chimes again. And  Noah’s parents gifted him a brand new BMW convertible. 

But your dad’s in the hospital with cancer this Christmas. 

Why is everyone’s lives better than yours?

How often has your day turned dark because of thoughts like these?

As Christian girls, guarding our hearts is one of the most important things we need to learn. And there are many things from which we need to guard our hearts. Around the Christmas season, this is especially important. This time of the year often feeds comparison which in turn breeds discontentment. 

You need to guard your heart from discontentment and the lies that your life is less than. Comparison is the biggest way we fall prey to discontentment. So many things around Christmas can spark comparison from holiday traditions to presents to Instagram posts. We look at everyone else’s “perfect” lives and feel that God has shorted us from what we truly deserve. We think that we’re missing out, that we’ve been given the short end of the stick, that they have a better life than us. We believe the lie that others’ lives shine brighter than our own.

Comparison ruins our lives as we ruminate on it over and over again until we fall into a deep pit of despair. And then we dig that pit deeper as we continue to scroll Instagram and wish “If I just had that…” But despite the lies the Enemy feeds us, we have the perfect life. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you…plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” God has given us exactly what He knows we need. He will not withhold a good thing from us if it’s the proper time. All those things we desire, those things that seem better than what we have, wouldn’t actually be good for us. What’s good for us is what God has already given us. 

But the gold glitters so brightly over there… and what if that’s what we’re supposed to have and God’s not giving it to us? 

Thus begins the discontentment. We struggle against what God has placed in our lives for things whose surfaces glitter like the sun. And that’s the core problem of comparison and discontentment. 

Discontentment is the seed of an ungrateful heart. Yes, it’s easy to be jealous of other’s gifts, the way they spend Christmas, or even the way they decorate. But discontentment isn’t a circumstantial issue, it’s a heart issue. 

Discontentment takes root when we look at what God has blessed us with and decide it’s not good enough for us. That we deserve something better than what we have. That we haven’t been given the best.

Therein lies the problem. 

Who are we to say that we know better than the God of the universe?

Who are we to say we deserve anything?

Who are we to have a say at all?

We are sinful humans, here only because the God of the universe loves us so much that He sent His one and only Son to die on a cross and rise again on the third day so that whoever believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life with Him. 

And we dare question Him?

At Christmas, God gave us the greatest gift ever given in the history of the world. A gift that many people toss away as nothing. Jesus Christ of Nazareth. God’s Son. The Savior of all humanity.

To be discontent at Christmas is to misunderstand what Christmas actually celebrates. It’s not about Santa and reindeer, or giving, or presents, or what we can get from Great Aunt Ruby this year. It’s not about us at all. It’s about Him. We need to reorient our focus from ourselves to Him. 

He is the true meaning of Christmas. 

To combat discontentment and comparison, we don’t just need to focus our gaze back on Him, but also what He’s blessed us with. We have to let God speak through His word and through prayer about how much He’s already given us. Because He has freely and bountifully given to us. Our very lives, every breath we take, is a gift from Him. By grace alone, He broke our chains of sin and handed us eternal salvation and freedom, expecting nothing in return but our belief. 

So this Christmas, instead of wishing for what we could have, let’s thank our Heavenly Father for every good and perfect gift He’s already given us. 

Thank you so much for joining us on Day Six of the 12 Days of Christmas: Godly Girl Version! Make sure to check out Emily's video on Instagram and we hope to see you tomorrow! And again, if you have a prayer request, please let us know!