Beware of Your Audience

I love Christmas! I love the decorations, holiday meals, gifts, family visits, parties, desserts, wrapping paper, bows, carols, sparkling lights, nativity scenes – I love all of the things that makes the Christmas holiday so festive! For me, these things conjure up all kinds of special memories of sentimental times of my childhood, my parents, my children, and now our grandchildren. When I think of these kinds of things I get pretty nostalgic and smile. 

But not everyone enters the holidays with my kind of ignorant wistfulness. I was reminded of this last week as I was speaking with a young mother who got all tangled up in the trappings of the season. She was really hurting on the inside because she was failing to live up to her understanding of what others expected of her. Imagine my shock as I listened to her tearfully share how much pressure she felt to live up to the standard that she thought it would take to make her family’s celebration perfect. She was overwhelmed by the shear weight of all of the preparations. Her mother made it look so easy every year and when she found out that it is really not all candy canes and snowflakes… it took her breath away. 

As I heard her heart tremble I wondered how to turn this opportunity into something that would speak to her soul. There is an interesting verse in Matthew 6 that served as my starting point. Matthew 6:1 says: “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them…” Jesus, here, is giving an important warning to believers – “Beware of doing things for the sole purpose of having people see what you do.” So much of our angst and anxiety occurs because we feel like we have to do things so that people will see how well we are doing.

Church, I want us to consider how often we struggle with these kinds of things on a daily basis. Let’s heed Jesus’ warning and beware of practicing our righteousness IN ORDER to be seen. Let us choose to follow the words that I showed this precious young mother at the end of this chapter: “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Instead of worrying about what we can/should/must do – let us focus on what He has already done and IS doing in His Kingdom all around us! Let us get over ourselves and invest our time and energy living in such a way that it causes others to see what Jesus has done!