So today I decided to do some research.  Those of you who know me would also know that I am a shoot from the hip guy.   Too often I live my life in the “Fire, Ready, Aim-Mode.”  My target today, Santa and Merry Christmas.

Don’t get me wrong… I know Santa….. I have been Santa.  At least for a moment or two.

And certainly I have celebrated Christmas.  Much of the world has opened a present during the Christmas season.  Presents are also opened under the guise of the Holiday Season.  But you catch my drift.

But today I have taken aim on Santa and Christmas.  And I decided to do it as a believer.  Yes I am a believer in Jesus Christ.  Yes I have been involved in a relationship with Him for over 50 years.  But it is during the Christmas season, “the reason for the season” that I am often most troubled.

I am going to assume you have asked “Why?,” at this moment.  And if you haven’t I will ask it for you.  It is the reason for the reasoning.

It appears to me, Christmas tends to offend many people.  Too much shopping, so much pressure, cards received from folks you did not send to, people exceeding the $20 gift limit during secret Santa, what is the proper denomination on a Starbucks gift card, the family holiday portrait, who to invite to Christmas dinner, how to pay off the credit cards.  These are just a few.

But the reoccurring problem, year after year, and decade after decade, it now seems, is to whom may I wish a “Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays?”

Seriously!  How the heck is this an issue.  Believers and Non, fighting over 2 words.  I am going to tell you I know what I say.  I don’t think about it.  I just do what I do.  And this too, I know, not one person has EVER become a Christian in my 50 years of journey because they heard me say Merry Christmas.  I don’t believe that one Christian has denounced their faith because and Atheist wished them Happy Holidays.

As for Santa, little kids will outgrow their belief in the Jolly man.  Why?  Because he is a fictional character of course.  Santa is not a life changing kind of guy, unless you are a kid.  Everyone learns the truth about Santa some day, one day in life.  There is an awakening.  And then Christmas or the Holiday continue, it become the seasonal truth.

By the way, I have never outgrown my belief in Jesus.  My faith, My choice, My truth.

For those of you who may not know.  There is a resource out there called “Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance.”  The short version of what this is.  A summary in alphabetical order of EVERY word in EVERY book in the Bible, connected to its original Hebrew or Greek roots.  Yes every “a” or “an” or “the” is listed and connected to the verse in which it is found.  So you can imagine there are pages of connections to the little words.  And fewer references to words like Methuselah or Boaz or Asher.  And then there are words that don’t appear in the Bible at all.

There is NO Santa.  There is NO Christmas.  Never once do these words appear in the Bible.  Old Testament or New.

There are however appearances for the word “division.”   Division, or dividing, is both and action and a spirit.  Division is sometimes necessary, but quite often it is just outright evil.