You Don't... What?!

 Did I ever tell you about the time we lived in a desert? 

Well, it wasn't really a desert but it felt like one.  We were all alone, we lived there for five years. We didn't have local friends or a church body but we grew more there, spiritually, than ever in our lives. We had the Lord, His word and one another. 

It was during our desert time that the Lord taught us about

... headship and submission and what it means to be a helpmeet

... modesty and what that really means

... the dangers of age-segregated activities, especially in worship and Bible study

... the principles of a courtship model of relationships

... the health value of eating clean

and more.  Maybe I'll expound on those topics in another post but for now I want to talk about something else.

Why do we believe what we believe?  We realized we could support all of the above and homeschooling and more scripturally.  So we began to look at all of the choices and decisions we made to see if we could support everything with scripture.  

We realized that in the Old Testament when God wanted His people to do something, build something, celebrate something, He gave them very specific details... measurements... dates... times... very specific.  He told them exactly what He expected and how to live pleasing to Him.  In the New Testament we also see commandments... Jesus was baptized so we should be also.  The Last Supper, 'do this in remembrance of me'., and others.  They are more general but still it's very clear what God wants of us. 

This is the filter we began using to evaluate our choices and decisions. And  you know what we found?  God, who so clearly explained in scripture how we could please Him and what He expects of us never asked us to celebrate the birth of His son!  He didn't even tell us when Christ was born. Why?  Surely celebrating the Birth of Jesus is a good thing? Right? Why did God not give us that information?  Why did he not say 'on the x day of the y month in the year z'...?  He certainly did that in many other places. We puzzled over this for a long time.  We read and read.  It's just not there.  Why is it not there?  What does that omission mean?  It has to mean something, God doesn't make mistakes, He didn't just forget to tell us.

That line of questioning led us to research Christmas from a historical perspective.  We learned of it's pagan origins and we read scripture where we are admonished not to 'mix things of this world with the things of the Lord'. Bingo.  We are His, we are set apart. We have to seek Him in all things.  We just don't believe that celebrating Christmas is His desire for us.  

We also believe that we are all on our own walks with God and He will show us what He wants of us in His perfect timing.  We are not all convicted of the same things at the same time, or maybe never?  

But for us... no.  We do not have the freedom from the Lord to celebrate pagan holidays that are mixed with 'godly' ones.  So we do not celebrate Easter either. We certainly teach our children about the birth of Christ and what that means for us.  We also teach them about His death and resurrection.  You don't have to "do" Christmas and Easter for your children to learn about Christ and His sacrifice for us!