I love Christmas for a lot of reasons, and one of them is that I get the chance to attend a Messiah sing-in . . . or is it a “sing along”? Whichever, it’s so glorious to stand up and sing the “Halleluiah Chorus” at the top of my lungs and have my very “littlest angel” voice (as Michael McClean made reference to in his wonderful program, “The Forgotten Carols”) drowned out by the several hundred other people in the hall.
And then there are those most precious of all words, “For unto us a child is born, unto a son is given . . .”1 Again I rejoice in those words in unison with others, singing my heart out . . . only I’ve taken the prophets’ invitation to put myself in the words of the scripture, and I sing the words as I have felt my Lord’s tender invitation to sing them:
For unto me a child is born! Unto me a son is given. And the government [of my life] shall be upon His shoulders, and [I shall call His name] Wonderful! Counselor! The Mighty God! The Everlasting Father! The Prince of Peace!
I was a member of His restored Church for several decades before I was in a “preparation to hear the Word,” or in other words, before I was humble enough to take the gift of my Father’s Beloved Son and make Him my own in such a wholehearted manner. It was like scales fell from my eyes and I saw the truth that He was born to be my own Beloved Son, born unto me—into my heart and mind—with all the joy and hope and counsel and comfort and peace I could even begin to comprehend.
He waited for me to look to Him as my very own wonderful counselor, my mighty God—mighty enough to save us all, even me—my Savior, my Father2, and my dearest Friend . . . in fact, my everything. When that day came, not only did my recovery from the effects of the fall begin, but my redemption dawned in my heart, and to this day—through thick and thin (most literally)—it has not left me. He has not left me. He never will.
And thus I can have a Christmas morning for as many mornings out of the year as I choose to. He’s there waiting for me every time I am willing to look to Him for counsel, for comfort, for guidance and grace to navigate yet one more day of this life. It is true, even as He Himself promised. This is the single greatest gift of any gift the Holy Ghost could prepare me to receive—this gift of the living Christ. In and through a spiritual means that I do not understand, but could never deny—even at the peril of my life—He lives for me. Each morning that I seek Him early, I find Him. Together we kneel before our Father and I seek His words—the words of Christ—to teach me through the Holy Spirit—the words I need to speak and to hear as I pray.
Is this not Christmas morning? Could there be any gift beyond or before this gift? Is this not why He came to be with us—each of us and all of us, one heart, one soul at a time—if we will just open our hearts to Him and allow Him to teach us His Life, His Light and His Way?
As I sit here this morning at my desk and listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s rendition Handel’s words, “All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned, everyone to his own way,” I cannot help but identify with every word. I have been there, lived like that—gone astray from my Lord in pursuit of some easier, softer way, seeking some “way and means” to feel good, at peace, fulfilled . . . or at least filled . . . and nothing has saved me. Nothing. No amount of food. No amount of fatness or thinness either. No amount of success, even at being a wife, a mother, a totally active LDS woman, could fulfill me. No amount of buying and spending and getting and wrapping and giving and holiday cheer—all was good—very good—but only as far as it went. And it didn’t go far enough. Most of us spend a long time learning that there are important, even essential, things that no one and nothing else besides Jesus can do for us.
I learned these things over the last twenty years of taking just one or two verses of scripture about Him or from Him, just one paragraph of a modern prophet’s testimony and writing it out word-for-word in my journal pages and then writing my thoughts to Him and His thoughts to me. It is not just a theory to me or a beautiful idea or promise—this certainty that the voice I hear, that I try so falteringly to sing harmony with—is His own.
I was looking through some of my past journal entries this morning, in preparation for composing this article and I kept finding treasures of testimony about the Lord Jesus Christ—some from various prophets and scriptures and some that had come directly into my own mind and filled my own heart. I turned to Phil (my precious #4 man in my life—right behind and beside the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and I said, “Sweetie! I want to share this thought in this month’s Meridian article . . . and this one, and this one. And then there’s this one, too. But they’re all short and disjointed.” After I read a few to him, Phil looked at me and said, “How can you say they’re disjointed, Colleen? They’re all about the Savior. You should just gather them up and pour them out.”
An Advent Offering—25 Little Christmas Hugs
And so, here is my Christmas gift for you this year—25 Christ-adoring thoughts, one for each morning from now until the day. If I could send them to each of you, one per morning, I would do that. It is my prayer that they will inspire you to think of Him the first thing every morning, so that He encircle you in His love and go with you through the rest of this often-too-busy season.
#1 – How Often Do I Think of Christ Adoringly?
“That is admirable [to think of Christ at Easter and Christmas], but we wonder if thoughts of Jesus, which ‘with sweetness [fill our] breast,’ ought not to be far more frequent and MUCH MORE CONSTANT in ALL times and seasons of our lives. How often do we think of the Savior? How deeply and gratefully and how adoringly do we reflect on his life? How CENTRAL to our lives do we know him to be? For example, how much of a normal day, a working week, or a fleeting month is devoted to ‘Jesus, the very thought of thee’?” (Howard W. Hunter, Ensign, May 1993, 64.)
#2 — A True Witness of His Living Reality
“As a Church we have critics, many of them. They say we do not believe in the traditional Christ of Christianity. There is some substance to what they say. Our faith, our knowledge is . . .rooted deep in the soil of modern revelation, that we, in the words of Nephi, ‘talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that [we and] our children may know to what source [we] may look for a remission of [our] sins’ (2 Ne.
25:26).” (Gordon B. Hinckley, “We Look to Christ”, Ensign, May 2002, 90–91)
#3 — He Loves Us One at a Time
As I turned to Heavenly Father in prayer, I felt His counsel to me through His Son. I began to understand that Christ doesn’t atone for all of us at once, en masse. He atones for us one person at a time; He cleanses us one heart at a time, and He loves us one at a time as choice and unique individuals. (He Did Deliver Me from Bondage, 35.)
#4 — Jehovah, Christ, and the Lord are All the Same Individual
Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid; for the Lord JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also has become my salvation. (2 Nephi 22:2) Jehovah of the Old Testament, Christ of the New Testament, and the Lord of the Book of Mormon are the same individual (Helaman 14:12, 3 Nephi 15:5). Nephi, Jacob, Enos, Benjamin, and later Alma, the brother of Jared, Mormon and Moroni—all these men, even like Adam, Abraham, Moses, Peter, James and John, had a “working, walking,” intimately personal relationship with Him, even the Lord Jesus Christ. While they kept the supremacy of the Father always in perspective, they cried out to the Lord, counseling with Him and praising Him continually in their hearts and minds (Enos 1:2, 4, and 10; Mosiah 2:19; Alma 36:18). (He Did Deliver Me from Bondage, A-10.)
#5 – Christ Has Covenanted to Never Cast Us Off
While reading the title page of the Book of Mormon, I come to these words again: “that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they may know that they are not cast off forever.” These words testify to me that I need never fear that He will cast me off. He has made covenants with the Father, and with me as well, that He will never cast me off. I may cast Him off, but He will never reciprocate. I pray that I may retain that truth every new day in my consciousness. (Personal journal entry.)
#6 — Do All My Actions in His Name
“Whatever a man does, let him do it in the name of the Lord–let him work in the name of the Lord, let all his acts through life be in the name of the Lord; and if he wants light and knowledge, let him ask in that name.” (Brigham Young, JD 1:48)
#7 — May I Seek Him Early and Find His Rest
D&C 54:10 – And again, be patient in tribulation until I come; and, behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, and they who have sought me early shall find rest to their souls. Even so. Amen.
#8 — The Book of Mormon Was Written to Convert Me to Christ
Today I pay close attention to the first five words immediately following the title of the Book of Mormon—“Another testament of Jesus Christ.” It is so important to remember that the Book of Mormon was written for our day—not just to convert the nonmember to the Church, but also to convert the Church to Christ. On the day we each become His individual convert (His “prisoner,” as Paul terms it in Ephesians 4:1), we will know His peace, and be no longer His servants, but His friends. (He Did Deliver Me from Bondage, 36)
#9 — What Part of “Always” Do I not Understand?
I choose Him every hour, consciously, deliberately. I touch bases with Him and ask what He would have me do this hour. I “listen” to the answering thought or impression, trusting that if I ask of Him bread, He will not give me a stone or allow Satan to, either. If I ask of Him the truth, He will not lie to me.
And in this act of doing exactly what the Sacrament prayer tells us to do—to always remember Him—I find the gift of guidance and wisdom so far beyond my own that I am constantly astounded at His generosity. (Personal journal entry.)
#10 – My Heavenly Father Is Delighted When I Seek the Savior’s Counsel.
For us to seek the Son’s counsel, to talk to Him, visualize Him, walk with Him, labor with Him and love Him with all our heart, might, mind and strength, delights the Father (Colossians 1:19). He knows full well that the Beloved Son will attribute all glory, honor and power to the Father (Matthew 6:13) and will always teach us to pray unto the Father in His own name. There is no jealousy between them. They are, along with the Holy Spirit who administers for both of them, even as one (John 10:30; 2 Nephi 31:21).
#11 – I need to think of Him as a real person.
“We should earnestly seek not just to know about the Master, but to strive, as He invited, to be one with Him (see John 17:21), to ‘be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man’ (Eph. 3:16). We may not feel a closeness with Him because we think of Him as being far away, or our relationship may not be sanctifying because we do not think of Him as a real person.” (President James E. Faust, Ensign, January 1999, 2.)
#12 – I Will Counsel with Him, Rely Wholly upon Him.
Let us never forget the witness of the Book of Mormon, and remember that every day we must counsel with the Lord in all our doings, and let the affection of our hearts be placed upon Him forever, for we can be sure His is placed on us forever (Alma 37:36–37). We must never again forget that salvation cometh only by “relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save” (2 Nephi 31:19). (He Did Deliver Me from Bondage, 42)
#13 — I Love Him.
“I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Eternal, Living God. None so great has ever walked the earth. None other has made a comparable sacrifice or granted a comparable blessing. He is the Savior and the Redeemer of the world. I believe in Him. I declare His divinity without equivocation or compromise. I love Him. I speak His name in reverence and wonder. I worship Him as I worship His Father, in spirit and in truth. I thank Him and kneel before His Beloved Son who reached out long ago and said to each of us, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11:28).” (President Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign, December 2000, 2)
#14 — What I Receive When I Make Him My Life, My Light and My Way.
Christ is the Life, the Light and the Way. When a person is living in His Spirit, they have three forms of empowerment at work in their existence. They have more energy (Life), more understanding/wisdom (Light), and more sense of right direction (the Way). (Personal journal entry.
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#15 — Jesus Is My “Consolation” Prize, as Soon as I Let Go of Every Other “Prize”
JST Luke 2:25 And behold, there was a man at Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Ghost was upon him. How amazing to think that Christ is our consolation prize! That He is the prize we receive just as soon as we’re willing to give up everything we thought was the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd prizes. (Personal journal entry.)
#16 – Christ Is the Alpha and Omega (the Beginning and the End) of All Good.
This morning as I was praying I saw this truth: Jesus Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning (knowledge of His will for me) and the end (power to carry it out) of the highest good I can do in any given hour of my day. (Personal journal entry.)
#17 – It Is Possible to Be Perfect in Christ (Moroni 10:32) . . . One “Now” at a Time.
I see that (if I so choose) I can be perfect in Christ, in each new moment, each new “now.” And again, now. And again, now. We can be perfect indefinitely–infinitely– by deliberately and consciously having our very being in remembrance of Him. Every new moment, every new “now” is a new chance to choose to be perfect in Him, not on my own. (Personal journal entry.)
#18 – In Christ I Can Have a Fullness of Joy–No Matter Who or What Else I May Lose.
3 Nephi 28:10 And for this cause ye shall have fulness of joy; and ye shall sit down in the kingdom of my Father; yea, your joy shall be full, even as the Father hath given me fulness of joy; and ye shall be even as I am, and I am even as the Father; and the Father and I are one;
#19 – Sing the Song of His Living Presence.
He is the Light, the Truth, the Way. As Latter-day Saints, we don’t need to be ashamed of that truth, that FACT. We must overcome our pride at being afraid to sound like “Born Agains” or “Jesus Freaks.” “God bless them all” should be our attitude. And then we should, with the authority of the Restored Gospel and Priesthood, pick up the joy and the song of His living presence in our lives!! (Personal journal entry.)
#20 – Make Friends with Him . . . Open a Communication with Him.
“The greatest and most important of all requirements of our Father in Heaven and of his Son Jesus Christ. … is to believe in Jesus Christ, confess him, seek him, cling to him, make friends with him. Take a course to open a communication with your Elder Brother or file-leader–our Savior.” (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 8:339)
#21 – Establish a “Deep and Abiding Relationship” with Jesus Christ.
“Establish a deep and abiding relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Know that He is there–always there. Reach out to Him. He does answer prayers. He does bring peace. He does give hope. In the words of the Psalmist, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress: . . . in him will I trust’.” (Psalm 91:2.) (Ezra Taft Benson, Ensign, Nov.1988, 96-97)
#22 – I Can Face My Future by Looking to Christ to Live.
“May the Spirit of our Lord accompany us and remain with us. We know not what lies ahead of us. We know not what the coming days will bring. We live in a world of uncertainty. For some, there will be great accomplishment. For others, disappointment. For some, much of rejoicing and gladness, good health, and gracious living. For others, perhaps sickness and a measure of sorrow. We do not know. But one thing we do know. Like the polar star in the heavens, regardless of what the future holds, there stands the Redeemer of the world, the Son of God, certain and sure as the anchor of our immortal lives. He is the rock of our salvation, our strength, our comfort, the very focus of our faith. . . . In sunshine and in shadow we look to Him, and He is there to assure and smile upon us. . . . He is the central focus of our worship.” (Gordon B. Hinckley, “We Look to Christ,” Ensign, May 2002, 90)
#23 – Come unto Christ and Be Centered in Him.
What does your mind go back to over and over all day long? As President Benson testified:
“Finally, men captained by Christ will be consumed in Christ. To paraphrase President Harold B. Lee, they set fire in others because they are on fire. Their will is swallowed up in his will. (See John 5:30.) They do always those things that please the Lord. (See John 8:29.) Not only would they die for the Lord, but, more important, they want to live for Him. They have Christ on their minds, as they look unto Him in every thought. (See D&C 6:36.) They have Christ in their hearts as their affections are placed on Him forever. (See Alma 37:36.)” (Ezra Taft Benson, “Born of God,” Ensign, Nov. 1985, 5)
#24 –To Live in Christ’s Spirit Is to Live in The Spirit of Truth (D&C 93:26).
And to live in His Spirit does not mean that we will never have sorrow or anger. It means that we will be honest about our feelings–we will be truthful with ourselves and others as He gives us in prayerful silent counsel to be. To be in His Spirit is to live truthfully in the world. It is to be honest in all our dealings with our fellow men. (Personal journal entry)
#25 – On this Christmas Morning . . .
I would pray for all of us this greatest of all the gifts of God–this gift of the pure love of (both from and for) Christ, this gift of open heart to heart communion with the Holy One, this Christmas. As we have the chance to hear Handel’s exquisite Messiah, may we each, individually, personally, privately, in the intimacy of His love for us hear the words this way:
For unto [me] a child is born, unto [me] a son is given; and the government [of my life] shall be upon his shoulder; and [I shall call His name] Wonderful! Counselor! The Mighty God! The Everlasting Father! The Prince of Peace!” (See 2 Nephi 19:6.)
