According to my wife, it’s a guy thing. I’ll be standing in front of the pantry asking her “are we out of Nutella already?” She’ll reply, “No, it’s right there in the pantry, middle shelf”. “No it’s not” I reply. She then makes her frustrated way to the pantry, grabs the jar of Nutella that was literally right in front of me and places it firmly in my hand as her eyes roll. It was right there in front of me, but somehow I didn’t see it. Sound familiar to you?

Often the answers we are looking for and the acts of our Heavenly Father are right in front of us, but we don’t always see them.

I don’t know about you but I love Christmas. However, there is also a lengthy list of things I don’t love about Christmas, in fact there’s a lengthy list of things I can’t stand about Christmas. Most Christmas songs fall into 2 categories, I either love them or I can’t stand them, and there’s not too many in between. 1 song that I had mistakenly put in the “can’t stand” category was “The Little Drummer Boy”.

I think it’s because of the “parum-pa-pum-pums”. Typically, if there’s a song that has something annoying about it, like “parum-pa-pum-pums”, I stop listening to it and never give it a chance. It wasn’t until recent years that I ever paid attention to the incredible message in that song. Boy, was I missing out!

You see one of the Christian concepts that took me a very long time to see, was the concept of worshipping and honoring God with the gifts and talents we have been given. For years I was confused when an athlete would say that they “were playing football for God”. To me, the only way to worship God was through song, prayer, service, communion, etc. There was a disconnect for me that the Little Drummer Boy was trying to help me understand, if I would have only listened and looked.

There are probably many spiritual truths we are missing in life because we’re distracted by the packaging. I missed the profound message I needed about worship, because I didn’t like the sound of that song. What about worship songs you don’t like, or sermons by preachers or people we dismiss as irrelevant, or the books we never pick up because we don’t recognize the author, etc.?

Sometimes the answers and the messages are right in front of our eyes, but we don’t see them. Just like when the God of the universe was in the flesh in Christ Jesus, but so many missed Him. They didn’t accept Him because He didn’t come with the cool, powerful packaging and fan fare that they had anticipated and wanted.

Let’s be more like the Little Drummer Boy this holiday season. Let’s recognize Jesus and follow Him despite all the distractions. Though we feel inadequate, let’s worship Him with all that we have and in creative new ways. Yes, let’s “play our best for Him”…paraum-pa- never mind, you get the point!