We are waiting for the baby Jesus

The crib in our chapel is ready for the big event.  

It is Christmas next week and the crib is ready for the coming of Jesus.  Are we?

My key word for this time is "expectant".  We are expectant.  That is we are waiting full of expectation.  This is different from excitement which may or may not be part of our experience at any time.  Being expectant is the nature of this time of the year, while excitement is not something naturally with us at all times.  It is like you cannot have forced fun.  However, you can naturally have a natural time of shared expectation, as with the lead up to Christmas.

As I participate this week in a workshop on change, I have a level of expectation for good change in my environment, my sphere of influence.  I agree with the presenter that change best happens when the desire for it is shared and all work together for it.  If people do not want change, it will not happen for them, despite how much change is pressed or seen as a necessity in life.  What will happen instead is that people will suffer because they did not grasp the good change on offer for themselves.

The exercise of the workshop is to name a problem and analyse what stops good change happening to deal with it.  The five categories needed for change are named. 
Awareness of the need for change.
Desire to support the change.
Knowledge on how to change.
Ability to implement new skills.
Reinforcement to sustain the change.
All five areas need to be in play for change to be achieved.

I think of the saying - old habits die hard.  How true!  As I think of my entrenched ways and how they act against my own sense of worthwhile being, I would name desire and reinforcement as the two areas that hold me back from good change in my life.  I know that good change  will lead me to a better sense of well-being and holistic life.  Yet it so often just does not happen.  The model used for change tells me that these two lacking areas in my purpose and action result in my resistance to the change I need and desire.  So the unwanted result is that I constantly revert to my known ways of behavior that lead me nowhere and only once again  to frustration.   

If I am to make wanted change happen in my life, I am to challenge these two areas.  Thus the way can be opened to my expectation being realized for a better life.  Expectation can become reality when meeting the challenges of change.

Christmas is somewhat like that.  The days leading up to Christmas are days of expectation which open us up to needed change in our lives and world.  Let me work for the change that is called for and make it happen so that the baby Jesus comes yet again and WOW!!  It is Christmas again.