We finally cleared off a spot to display our favorite nativity set. It was embarrassing that it took so long. Everyday I would look at the boxes in my living room and think to myself, "I've got to put that up today." My excuse was that I needed a safe place to put it. The place I had in mind (where it is in this picture, and as you can see, is hardly safe) was at the time filled with the gingerbread houses we decorated. I threw those away in the middle of the month to make room for the nativity, but then it was time to get the Christmas cards ready to send out and they began to occupy this same spot.
As this went on during the month I thought of how symbolic this was to my life sometimes. Too often, I let other distractions and things that really aren't as important, get in the way of my time for spiritual matters. I realized that I needed to make sacrifices to make space for Christ and the nativity in my home, and that I needed to make some sacrifices in my life to make time for Christ.
This quote by Elder Henry B. Eyring touched me:
“We will have to make some hard choices of how we use our time. But there should never be a conscious choice to let the spiritual become secondary as a pattern in our lives. Never. …
“… When we put God’s purposes first, He will give us miracles. …
“… Those apparent prison walls of ‘not enough time’ will begin to recede, even as you are called to do more.”
Too often I let spiritual matters become secondary, just as I made my most important Christmas decoration secondary to other traditions. The change won't come overnight, and I know it will take work, but it's choice that I know I need to make.
No comments:
Post a Comment