Craving Christmas

Prepare your heart for the holidays in this devotion with Heather Hart.

Bible Verse for Today

“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.”

Psalm 42:1

Devotion for Today

Craving Christmas

The whole town was a buzz with the news, Christmas was coming. In fact, He was here. Jesus had arrived. And Zacchaeus longed to see Him. But he had a problem. Everyone else wanted to see Jesus, too.

Not only that, but Zacchaeus wasn’t liked or respected, so no one wanted to make way for him to get through the crowds. And he was pretty short, so he couldn’t see over anyone. For a while, he felt hopeless. But then he had an idea.

Zacchaeus decided he would run ahead of the crowd and climb up into a tree, then when Jesus passed his way, he would be able to see Him. That’s all he really wanted; just to lay eyes on the one they called the Christ.

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I love the story of Zacchaeus, because of the way he longed to see Jesus. Zacchaeus was a tax collector. He was hated by the people because of his job, and the way that he carried it out. He was rich by the world’s standards, but still, he longed for Christ. He knew something was missing.

Zacchaeus had such a desire for Jesus, that he was willing to go to extraordinary lengths just to see Him. He had no guarantees that Jesus would look up into that tree. He might have even felt a bit foolish being caught up there. But he had a craving for Christ.

I don’t know about you, but I want to have that craving for Christmas this year. I want to crave Jesus like never before. I want to long for His presence in a way that makes me go out of my way to spend time with Him. I want Jesus to be my intention, not an afterthought.

Sometimes, when it comes to the holiday season, Jesus does end up as an afterthought though; if we’re honest. He makes a nice decoration. His name is beautifully woven into wonderful holiday music. But He isn’t really our goal. Instead of keeping Christ at the center of Christmas, we merely try to keep Christ in Christmas. Just a little. Enough to say that we did. Enough to check Jesus off our holiday to-do list.

But this year, I want to long for Jesus the way Zacchaeus did. I want to seek Him out. And when life gets in the way, I want to be intentional about finding a way to get to Jesus anyway. Because if a short, tax collector like Zacchaeus could find a way to Jesus when the whole town stood in the way, surely I can, too.

Sometimes, when it comes to the holiday season, Jesus does end up as an afterthought though; if we’re honest. He makes a nice decoration. Share on X