Frozen!

This past weekend, my wife and I were in North Carolina visiting my family for Christmas.

This visit was a little different because it was the first time I have traveled to another state with our two golden retrievers. We stayed at a hotel and were on the second floor.

This may sound insignificant, but with a one year old puppy, it is VERY significant.

Our puppy, Mowgli, is a tough guy. He is a smaller retriever, but he is built solid and has no concept of pain. He has two speeds: walking and full out sprint. He is a bundle of energy that few can handle without major prep ahead of time.

Despite his normal tendencies, he froze at the sight of the multi-level staircase…

I literally had to drag him down the stairs the first time, but he would not even entertain the idea of going up the stairs.

I tried to call him up the stairs. I tried pulling him up the stairs. My wife, Kendall, tried to do the same with no better luck. We even tried to get him to follow Marley up the stairs. (Marley is our 4 year old retriever, who glided up and down the stairs with ease.)

This didn’t work either.

Not seeing any other option, I resorted to coming back down the stairs and picking him up in my arms and carrying him up the two flights of stairs.

Once we arrived at the second level he resumed his normal behavior of trying to drag me through the breezeway…

This whole scene couldn’t be more perfect as I thought about Christmas being FIVE days away. Many of us think about Christmas as “the most wonderful time of the year” while we sing, shop, eat, and socialize.

Christmas is not about presents, decorations, or even family. It is about the birth of the Savior, Jesus. But let us not lose sight of what Jesus was born to do. He was born to die for the forgiveness of our sins (all the things we do wrong).

Matthew 1:21 describes an angel telling Joseph about the baby Mary will have, “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

Jesus was born because there is no way for us to save ourselves from sin.

Many of us try to climb the steps to heaven thinking that we can make it on our own, but when push comes to shove we freeze at the bottom in complete fear like Mowgli did with me.

It is in these moments that we realize we cannot do it on our own. We realize we need a Savior and that only Jesus can help us.

It is in that moment I picture Jesus descending the stairs of heaven, picking us up in his arms, and carrying us up to eternal life with him.

Christmas is not simply the birth of Jesus, but the beginning of the story of salvation. So this Christmas remember why Jesus came.

Anyway, I was just thinking…Merry Christmas!