I love the Christmas season—the fellowship with family and friends, the fun, the happiness and excitement, and the decorations!

This is a very obvious statement, and this article is not going to be all about how much I love Christmas. I want to, rather, focus on how God designed us for fellowship, and how we enjoy fellowship with each other over this beautiful season. We experience an infinitesimal taste of what it means to have fellowship with God.

Many years ago, I asked God to help me to try to understand His love. His answer grounded me. The love that I feel for my husband and our four children is, infinity times infinity, indescribable. God said back to me so clearly that this love that I feel for my family is but an infinitesimal taste of His love for me.

God wired us for love. Scientists have found this to be so as they navigate their way though intricate world of neuroscience. We feel this love as we fellowship with those we love. His grace extends to the great care and purposefulness He poured into our design, which enables us to experience this fellowship.

For example, the prefrontal cortex (the front part of the brain, just above the eyebrows that most people know as the frontal lobe) has specifically been designed to connect us with people. As we make eye contact and assess facial expressions and tones in voices and body language, our frontal lobe makes sense of all this, and we reach out and hug. God put these cute little mirror neurons within the networks of our brain that help us mirror each other’s emotions, and experience each other’s joy.

So we reach out and hug back, and warmth spreads all over our bodies from the amazing neurochemicals now flowing in harmonized synchrony through our brains and bodies as a result of this contact—a tangible way to experience His fellowship!

So as you fellowship this Christmas by handing gifts to your loved ones, sharing stories and laughter over Christmas dinner, and enjoying the beautiful Christmas decorations and lights, for just a moment, stop and think about what you are feeling, multiply it by infinity, and you have just been touched by the love God has for you, and the desire He has to fellowship with you by sending Jesus into the world.

  


Copyright © Dr. Caroline Leaf
All rights reserved. Used by permission.