I might be a procrastinator when it comes to Christmas shopping, but I've put off making a decision on the question. Finally, people like me are getting the credit we deserve. This morning's Wall Street Journal carries a long story on the importance of last-minute shoppers to this year's Christmas season. Apparently the holiday season's early buying frenzy has slowed significantly in the weeks since. Retailers are trying to lure some of you with last-minute sales. For people like me, it's business as usual.

It's not that our family Christmas shopping is in jeopardy. Janet began buying this year's gifts at last year's after-Christmas sales. You think I'm kidding. My wife is one of the world's most organized people. And a sale isn't a sale unless she has a 20 percent-off coupon to add to the 50 percent off taken from the 75 percent-off markdown shelf. Retailers pay her to take their stuff. She had everything wrapped under the tree the minute the tree was vertical.

I, on the other hand, am one of the people who apparently control the economic future of the nation, and am glad to do my procrastinating part. This week the boys and I will make our annual trek to the mall. We'll pool our collective ignorance and begin working our way from one end of the shopping center to the other. When we're done, one of them will distract Janet while I smuggle the stuff upstairs. (We know that she's smarter than we are, but the charade is part of the tradition.) I'll wrap our clandestine purchases later in the week, this time using Christmas wrapping paper (one year I used birthday wrap and didn't even notice). By a week from today all will be well, until next Christmas season brings the same last-minute angst.

You and I have only a week to get ready for Christmas, but the One who invented the day had all eternity to prepare. The God who became flesh was the "Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8). For centuries, the Creator prepared his creation for the entrance of his Son into the human race. He used the Greek empire to craft a universal language for the first Christians to use in sharing the good news of his Son's coming. He used the Roman Empire to forge a universal peace which would shelter those missionaries as they carried the gospel. He caused the Romans to build roads which would take Paul and his associates across the Western world with his love. He used the scattered Jewish people to build synagogues as footholds in the culture and launching pads for his worldwide movement of grace.

Then, when "the time had fully come" (Galatians 4:4), he sent his Son for you and for me. His timing is always just right. Why do you need to trust it again today?

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