Fall on your knees.

Fall on your knees
O hear the angel voices
O night divine
The night Christ was born.

No Christmas carol affects me like O Holy Night. The first few bars of the intro and I’m on a hillside outside Bethlehem on the night the world was Reset, I mean really Reset, trying to comprehend what the angels meant. His birth was truly the beginning of all things made right; He is the thrill of hope.

Credit the French for writing O Holy Night and for including some overlooked guidance. At the top of the chorus is a bit of relationship advice when dealing with our Savior and the Creator of the Universe:

Fall on your knees.

We sing these words every Christmas without realizing how true they are. After all, how do we even approach the King of the Universe but on our knees?. Maybe we should just fall on our faces.  A little extreme? In this golden age of selfies and rampant self-importance, we feel that we actually bring something to our relationship with God. Kneeling, actually or spiritually, is neither practical nor necessary because we can come boldly to God. ¿Yes?

Well, no.

God does want us to come without hesitation, but He does not need us, has never needed us and will never need us.  Here is some hard truth: if He isn’t totally focused on us every second of every minute, we not only vaporize, but it’s as if we never existed.  Remember, we have value only because God values us.  We utterly rely on Him for every single thing in our lives, the breath in our lungs, the thoughts racing through our minds, the clouds in the sky, the relationships we cherish and all the tiny proteins in each cell that work around the clock — in the dark — to keep us alive.

At the same time, it is eternally true that He loves us so much.  He gave our life to us, then He gave His life for us; a profound fact that defies explanation. But still, He is God, and He alone. We certainly are not. We are not God and we are not becoming gods — no matter what they whisper in our ears or implant in our brains.

So, when I find myself getting a little too bold and casual with the true and living God, I correct my attitude by considering ants. We’re disgusted when we find them in the kitchen in the morning, we go out of our way to step on them and we spritz their little homes with Termidor®. But the fact is, we have more in common with ants than with God.

No, no, you say, we’re made in the very image of God. We are, and that is priceless. But humans as well as ants are created, and very limited and finite.  God is infinite in every dimension and unlimited in every way.  How do finite humans even begin to relate to infinity?  They can’t, God has to start our relationship.

Somehow in today’s fractured Christianity, we have lost our reverence for the incomparable God; the God that put the twinkle in her eye and spectacular galaxies in the far reaches of the universe. That He gives us a second thought, or even a first thought, will forever be a mystery. But He does, miracle of miracles. So, as we obediently shop for gifts, let’s remember the greatest Gift of all.

And fall on our knees.