It's Halloween night and as it happens, both Debbie and I are home for the evening (NOT the par for the course!). So we've been taking turns answering the door and handing out candy to the Trick-or-Treaters.Now before I go any further, let me comfort anyone freaking out that we participate at all in anything to do with Halloween: I take the opportunity to pray for each child (and parent) who comes to our door and speak God's blessing over them. This has been my practice for more than a few years. I'd rather have nothing to do with this "holiday," but since it brings people to our door to receive whatever I have to give them (including the blessing and prayer [as long as it is preceded by candy!]), I offer them a little more than they expected. Here's to using The Enemy's holiday to "reverse the curse," as it were!
{ding dong} I'm in the kitchen getting dinner and it's Debbie's turn to answer the door. As she puts the candy in the bag of the first kid, I hear him belt out: "Is that IT?" (Debbie's classic response was: "Most people just say thank-you").
That sure is a typical comment from our society of entitlement. We deserve the best, therefore we should have it, therefore other people should make sure we get it . . . et cetera, ad infinitum!
And don't we often approach God that way? Before we go to him in prayer with our request, we already KNOW what we want him to do for us. If we were writing the "scripture" for this part, we'd probably say it something like this:
"Before I even asked, I knew what your answer should be."
Is that IT, God? Is that ALL you're going to do for me? Aren't you forgetting something? Hey- I'm talking here!
Shaky ground indeed.
Most Christians should just say "thank-you!"
2 comments:
Why on earth would Christians "freak out" to find out that you were giving out candy??? Yes, originally the costumes are supposed to scare off the evil spirits because the pagan belief was that the evening was between time. It is true - the last vestiges of a pagan holiday that has been appropriated by the Christians - we even moved All Saints and All Souls to create Halloween...
Halloween
Hallow / een
Hallow / eve
Holy evening... that is the root of the word - holy evening because the feast of all Saints is on Nov 1st and the Jewish custom is to begin the holy day at sunset the previous day... hence Holy Evening.
I do however find your answer to "Is that IT?" VERY appropriate especially in our age of entitlement.
It's interesting that depending on the "circles" of Christianity you move in, there are a variety of thoughts about Christians and Halloween.
Some are aghast that Christians would have anything to do with The Enemy's "most holy holiday." Others, like you, see it as Christianity has conscripted a holiday from our Enemy's hands.
However, I see very little church activity relating to the hallowed evening. It looks to me like we took one from The Enemy, then over time he took it right back!
And that's the part I'm talking about- what it has become- a celebration of darkness and evil.
But as people of light, we need to be that light in whatever darkness is around us. What chance does the world have if we Christians don't stand up and bring The Light into their darkness?
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