Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: North (05/05/16)
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TITLE: To Believe, or not to Believe? | Previous Challenge Entry
By Sylvia Young
05/12/16 -
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Santa—a source of major contention among Christians today.
Should we encourage our children to believe in him, the giver of good gifts to those who are worthy? He’s all-seeing, all-knowing and on one night a year, can pretty much be everywhere at once. Sound familiar? I almost wonder if someone created this image to help us understand who God is, what His attributes are. Is Santa a gateway to God?
It’s a stretch, I’ll grant you, but hear me out.
Santa has great power. He can perform what we would call miracles or magic depending on your standpoint.
He lives and works in a mysterious place that none have seen, supposedly the North Pole, but voyageurs have never laid eyes on it. However the place lives in the heart and minds of many innocent believers.
In addition, Santa has a bevy of small workers who endeavor to do their best in order to bring about the wishes and commands of their boss. They enable the works of “Father Christmas” to be fulfilled.
Now, about the special night itself, what do we teach our children? Santa flies around the world, bestowing the desires of their hearts upon good little boys and girls. These beautiful blessings are the wishes they’ve held all year long.
And then, on Christmas morning, the longed-for gifts bring much joy, excitement, squealing and hopefully…gratitude. The young ones revel in their gifts for days, weeks even, before casting them aside and focusing on the next item that will bring fulfillment to their young lives. They use up, eat up or break the gift and need something else from that jolly old saint.
The parallelism has many faults, but I can see the similarities if I look.
I’ve never been anti-Santa. I encouraged my children to believe, if only to get their faith mechanism up and running. Well, that and the peer pressure from my friends of course, but that’s a topic for another day!
Christmas is a special time of year. We decorate, sing songs, smile more, become more generous and exchange gifts. Yes, the focus should always be on Jesus, but these other things don’t have to take away from His life, not even Santa.
So, to believe or not to believe? The question is yours for the answering. At the right time, my children had to decide for themselves whether or not Santa is real. When they finally worked it out that it was impossible for one man to do all that was claimed about him, they gave up their belief. Now he is but a distant, pleasant memory for them.
In a similar way, one day my children will have to decide for themselves if God is real. They cannot borrow my faith indefinitely, although I’ll lend it to them for a time. At the right time, I pray that God will give them their own to have for their whole lives through, but unlike Santa, the figment of our own making, God will speak to them, encourage them and give them more then the ephemeral gifts that constantly need replacing. What He gives, will last forever.
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I enjoyed this.
Blessings~
Even though Santa is not real, I think that he symbolizes giving to others.
Blessings~