On finally *getting it* this year...

I'm a slow processor, guys.

Happy 2026, friends! We made it to another new year, another January First. But this isn’t going to be a recap or a roundup or a list of resolutions or intentions. This is a celebration of Christmas, because y’all, I think I finally got it this year.

I was reading an Advent devotional one morning and came across a really beautiful sentence about Christmas being the foundation for God’s faithfulness. I went back to look at it so I could write it right, and what’s funny is that I hadn’t remembered it exactly! What it actually says is not what’s been rolling around in my brain for a month! But I think God’s Spirit scrambled the words as I read them so that I’d spend the season thinking about this statement:

Christmas is the foundation for God’s faithfulness.

At first I thought… ok yeah, but then… well is Christmas really the foundation for God’s faithfulness? Wasn’t God faithful before Jesus? Couldn’t he be considered faithful apart from Jesus?

I’m not sure why I got so stuck and insisted on challenging that thought. I thought about God in the Old Testament and how he was faithful to the people even when they were tragically unfaithful, how he still performed signs and wonders to help them know him, how he always followed through on his promises for renewal and for discipline. And I thought… Christmas is great, and Jesus is the best, but is Jesus’ birth really the foundation for God’s faithfulness?

Thirty-three years of getting to know God, and I’m still learning. Thirty-three years of God’s Spirit within me, and I still have questions and doubts and fears. And God welcomes every one. Questions are not in opposition to faith. The pursuit of knowing God more and understanding God more is the journey of faith.

I sat with God and my questions and realized that yes, Jesus’ birth is in fact the foundation for God’s faithfulness, because Jesus’ birth is the ultimate fulfillment of all the promises — the singular moment in history we can point to and say, because God sent Jesus, we can be sure that he is perfectly faithful.

Yes, God was faithful in the Old Testament — because God is faithful, and he is the same yesterday, today, and forever — but all the promises fulfilled and wonders performed were pointing ahead to the ultimate fulfillment of Immanuel. God with us. Like Sally Lloyd Jones says, every story whispers his name.

Jesus is God with us. Jesus is God wrapped in fragile flesh to be with us. Jesus is God’s character on full display — the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.¹

Christmas really is the foundation of God’s faithfulness. Not December 25, not the presents, not the gathering of friends and family, not the lights and the songs and the excitement — all of that is wonderful; but just like God’s faithfulness in the Old Testament, it’s all pointing to something, THE thing. Jesus’ birth is everything.

Jesus’ birth is the light that shines in the darkness. Jesus’ birth is the good news of great joy for all people. Jesus’ birth is why we can have imperfect faith in the perfectly faithful God.

Jesus’ birth is the foundation for our faith because Jesus’ birth is the foundation for God’s faithfulness.

Jesus’ birth is the backpack full of everything you need to take the first step in your faith journey.

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”). // Matthew 1:22-23

Look at Jesus, and see God. See that God is creative. See that God is faithful. See that God is with us.

1. Hebrews 1:1-3