Carols Devotional: “Away In A Manger, Part 4”

The song Away in the Manger

Proverbs 22:6

The song Away in the Manger was written in 1885, and was one of the first carols ever written. It is a children’s lullaby, which was sung to children before bed and put in children’s books. I remember my Christmas’ as a child and a teenager. When I was little my Sunday School class from the time I was 5-11 years old, we would get speeches in late November, that tell of Jesus’ birth and love and we would have to take them home, memorize them and recite them on Christmas Sunday. The speeches would get longer as I got older. Every year we would Christmas tree program we would hear the Christmas story and sing Christmas Carols. On Christmas morning my family would always make sure we understood why we had gifts and we spent time praying and thanking God for His son and reading scripture. I love that one of the first Christmas Carols was written for children to tell them of the birth of Jesus. Telling the next generation about Jesus, is one of the key ways to make sure we are spreading the gospel. I was ministered to as a child at all of these angles and now I am ministering and every year the meaning of Christmas becomes more personal and intimate.  Now is the time to really in grain in our children’s hearts what Christmas is now so when they are older they will share the story with someone else. If we train them now, they will not depart. They need to know that we celebrate His birth because He is the Savior of the World. We celebrate Him because His coming means that we can have life and life more abundantly.

Erin Howard