This is just a little different from the traditionally way we sing this very familiar and special Christmas hymn.
Allow the freshness and simplicity to bring it’s truth home to you in a new way.
My prayer is that the Savior will truly be born in you today.
God bless.
It has not been a fun day at my house. The grandson and the Pepa locked horns. And a very stiff penalty was levied. The child didn’t think the adult was serious. The adult was unbending. There were many tears, but no true repentance. How do I know? The child blamed everyone else and continued to try and negotiate.
This did not help his case. In fact, I believe it only encouraged the adult to feel that he was right in his decision.
As long as we have been parents, foster parents, and grandparents, we have taught that actions have consequences.
And had to learn it, too. I tried to explain that to the child, but his heart was hurting to much to hear.
If you want to talk about harsh consequences, pull up a chair and listen to Adam and Eve’s story. It was just an apple. And they were unfairly tempted. At least that’s the way they saw it. One bite and not only were they booted out of the Garden, but then there was all that business about work and pain. Talk about harsh. I mean the rest of us have been paying for their poor choice through the ages.
But it’s not like we haven’t been warned. The Word is full of warning, the clearest being: you will reap what you sow.
Sometimes watching a child deal consequences makes it not much fun to be a mom or mema. It’s hard to not want to swoop in and rescue. It was very hard today.
In more ways than I want to try and explain, I have learned how choices result in consequences. But at the hardest point in facing those consequences, I found this scripture encouragement:
As for me, I look to the Lord for help.
I wait confidently for God to save me,
and my God will certainly hear me.
8 Do not gloat over me, my enemies!
For though I fall, I will rise again.
Though I sit in darkness,
the Lord will be my light.
9 I will be patient as the Lord punishes me,
for I have sinned against him.
But after that, he will take up my case
and give me justice for all I have suffered from my enemies.
The Lord will bring me into the light,
and I will see his righteousness.
10 Then my enemies will see that the Lord is on my side. (Micah 7:7-10, NLT)
Try as I might, I couldn’t find anything in the Word that spoke to God removing consequences. I wish, but no. Not there.
What is there is the promise that he will be with me…with you…all the way through.
In the darkest times, he will be there. He will be our light. He hears us. And he will bring us back to the light. And we will see his righteousness again.
And that’s good news to hold onto.
This year we are doing our Advent Tree with the grandson. It has been a lot of fun. Each day’s cubby holds a riddle/joke (appropriate for a 7yr old and all related to Christmas), a scripture verse, a Hershey kiss and coins.
Each day when he comes over he asks if he can “do the Advent.”
He spent the night last night and before he even turned on the TV he went to the tree. Do you know why Santa has a garden? (Pausing for effect…) Because he likes to “ho, ho, ho.”
Here we are two days from Christmas and he’s just about ready to pop! He just can’t wait. Like any child his focus is on the gifts. We’ve done what we can to fulfill his Christmas list, but inevitably we’ll miss something.
Last night he and I were talking about that very thing. He asked me if I was excited about Christmas. I told him I was but it wasn’t for the same reason as him. We talked more about presents and then I told him I wasn’t excited about presents, that I quit looking forward to presents a long time ago. He stared at me in disbelief.
I told him that I stopped asking for things when I was little because I didn’t get the things I wanted most. It took a while for me to realize why…and I learned it was my own fault.
While I still believed in Santa, I somehow determined that if I told my parents what I wanted it was like telling someone what you wished for when you blew out your birthday candles: if you tell it won’t come true. So my parents never knew what I really, really wanted.
I had not because I asked not.
I’m quite grown up now. I only believe in the spirit of Santa and I’ve let my parents off the hook for a lot of my issues and angst.
And I’ve learned that God wants to hear what I want, what I need. He wants to hear from me. It’s called prayer. And while my life is overflowing with unprayed answers, I find that the Shepherd of my heart wants me to bring those wants and needs to him.
The more I thought about it, the more excited I got about this. Sitting quietly, mulling this over, I realized that this asking thing is not about God withholding. No. It’s about God wanting a relationship. He doesn’t want to be a Santa God who shows up on Christmas (aka: once a year), dropping presents from a sleigh traveling past at the speed of light.
Bette Middler got it all wrong: God is not watching us from a distance. He’s right here with us. That’s why Jesus’ name was Emannuel. It means God with us. Jesus’ own parting words were: Lo, I am with you always. The writer of Hebrews put it this way: he won’t EVER leave us or forsake us.
How’s that for a Christmas gift? Not sure how you’ll wrap it because it’s definitely outside the box.
I don’t like controversy. I run away from conflict. I avoid confrontation.
This is a difficult weekend to avoid controversy.
A few days ago, a man of faith, who also happens to be a TV personality, was asked a few questions about his beliefs. I wonder if he felt like he was being set up? The whole thing reminds me of the way that the Pharisees questioned Jesus in order to trap him. The celebrity answered honestly, as he felt Jesus would have wanted him to. And wham, bam, his show was pulled and a well-known family style restaurant pulled all his merchandise.
And the lines have been drawn and people have polarized. Boycotts are planned. Nasty, derogatory comments are being made by both sides of the issue.
It makes me wonder how much of this is pleasing to God? Is he getting any glory out of our pettiness? People who might have been on the edge of faith are repulsed by behavior that should woo them not make them walk away.
But there is the point…when did it happen that I can’t express my faith without fear of offense?
Perhaps that’s the problem…we fear offense.
Go back and read the Christmas story. Read the gospels. Pay attention to Jesus’ words.
He was an equal opportunity offender.
I want to say that Jesus wasn’t intentionally offensive. I’ve tried to write the thought several ways, but I don’t believe it.
Jesus didn’t come to make the people of his day, or ours, comfortable. He stirs things up. He made radical comments and shed all kinds of new light on tightly held traditions. He ate with the wrong people. He traveled the wrong roads. He challenged authority. Controversy, confrontation, conflict seemed to follow him wherever he went.
And it got him killed. But not just him. His cousin John could easily speak to this, if he hadn’t lost his head. He was asked what he thought about the King’s questionable marriage situation and he paid the ultimate price–he gave his life.
No wonder we shy away. Bite our tongues. Swallow our faith.
So Mr. TV personality lost his show. It happens. I know a teacher who lost his job because he always put his Bible on his desk. He kept true to his faith…and fortunately another job came his way.
Maybe that TV show ran its course. Did what it was supposed to do. And maybe God has something else for this family to be doing. Should we boycott that too?
We don’t understand persecution for our faith the way that some do in other parts of the world. Or in times gone by. Jesus seems to want us to be more aware. He actually tells his followers, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:10).” Peter went on to write: 12 Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15 If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. 16 However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. 17 For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? (1 Peter 4:12-17)
Jesus’ birth was extremely controversial. Consider that the announcement came to shepherds, not the King.
We don’t have to go looking for conflict. It will find us. Sometimes it’s a set up. But however we encounter it. I pray that we faithfully face it and make sure we do all we can to speak the truth in love and glorify the one who is the foundation of what we believe.
I was surfing Christmas music on youtube when I came across this song by Amy Grant:
I’d never heard it before, so I sat and listened. And right at the end of the video a scene popped up that moved me and made me cry.
That last scene was in an app I downloaded for my phone and NookHD+. I selected it for my wallpaper on both. There was something very homey and comforting about it. It was like an invitation to step back and keep Christmas without all the hustle and bustle.
Seeing it there in this song was like a hug from God. And in my spirit I could hear him saying, “Whoa, little one. Slow down. You are racing so. Look at you all in a frenzy.”
I sat quietly and pondered this whole “resting” thing. Why is it so hard for people? So I decided to ask google. I found one article by a trainer described how he taught “chargers” to rest effectively. (Here’s the addy: http://breakingmuscle.com/mobility-recovery/learning-to-rest-teaching-hard-chargers-to-slow-down-and-relax .)
What he was saying reminded me of when I worked at Curves (The Workout Place for Women). When we coached people through the program we put strong emphasis on the cool down and stretching portion of the workout. Invariably at least half the women would skip this portion, citing a need to be somewhere else and promising to do it next time.
We just don’t slow down well.
Throughout the Psalms there’s a little word that we often gloss right over. It occurs 71 times there and three times in Habakkuk 3. The word is Selah. While there is some confusion over its exact meaning, it is most often described as a musical term which we would closely associate with a rest, bringing an oppotunity to pause, to mediate on what was just read or sung.
If our bodies need to physically pause to restore, should it come as any surprise that our spirits need that also?
So God’s gift came in the dark of night. In the quiet of night. Third shift. Quiet. Still. Selah.
Yeah, I think we could all use a Slient Night.
When you think of the aromas of Christmas, what comes to mind?
Pine. Peppermint. Fresh baked bread. Snickerdoodles. Honey baked ham. Mulled cider. A warm and cozy fire.
All pleasant. Cozy. Enveloping.
What about poop? What about cow, donkey, and the ever odoriferous pig?
Once upon a lifetime ago, I worked at a Shell Gas Station, ringing up customers in the convenience store. We were a farm community. The local large animal vet would work with students from a nearby college. Everyday they would come through the store for snacks and sodas–and their odor always proceeded them.
And lingered long after they left…way too long.
As I listened to a customer complaining about the pungent smell one day I found myself thinking about the stable where Jesus was born. I don’t imagine it smelled of pine and cinnamon. No it smelled like a barn, with animals…and manure.
About the closest most folks get to that is once a year when they traipse off to the county or state fair.
Why would God choose to be born in that manner, in that kind of place?
He’s not afraid of or put off by any mess in our lives.
Psalm 139 paints the clear picture that there is no height or depth that God will not go in pursuing us. He loves us that much.
He is not repulsed by the stink of our lives, the rottenness of our sins. His love is relentless as it it lavish.
There’s a funny thing about poop. We try and mask the smell with pretty smells. But all we end up with is cinnamon poop.
Perhaps God sent his son into the world, to a stable, to lay in a manger so that we would realize his amazing love for us and so that we would find him and quit trying to cover our messes.
For God so loved…
Part of what set me up to make the poorest decisions in my life was buying into the lie of “peace at any price.” I learned, and quite painfully, that there is no such thing because it really is not peace and we pay way too high a price.
And yet I still believe in and crave peace. I avoid conflict whenever I can. But I am not a pacifist. I am a peacemaker.
When the angel chorus delivered their message to the shepherds, they sang of peace on earth. And the crowd heard a very different message than what God intended. They took it to mean an end to strife and hardship and oppressive rule.
God had something very different in mind. Paul tried to clear up the confusion in his letter to the church at Ephesus. He wrote: “For he himself is our peace, who made both groups into one, broke down the barrier of the dividing wall…that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace.” (Ephesians 2:14, NASB.)
There were so many divisions between the people. The mission of Christmas is to heal those separations. God wanted peace not pieces. God wanted to bring his people back together and back to him.
Will you take some time to examine what divides your heart, what separates you from others, what keeps you from God.
His gift for you is peace: wholeness in life, not pieces formed by divisions.
Today I want to close with my favorite Christmas song and a prayer that God will heal the brokenness that divides so you will know peace.
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. (2 Corinthians 1:3-5, NIV)
4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. (Matthew 5:4, NIV)
Are God’s consolations not enough for you, words spoken gently to you? (Job 15:11, NIV)
Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. (Luke 2:25)
Excuse me. Could you lift your head up out of your celebration for a moment? Please. I won’t take long. I just want to remind you that not everyone is having a jolly old time during this season of merriment.
Look, I’m not trying to be Debby Downer…but I think it’s important to remember that there are people experiencing all kinds of levels of grief and loss. They look at the dinner table and there’s an empty chair. Perhaps it’s not a person but a job and income that they have lost. Maybe they have lost their dream.
And try as they might they can’t muster up an ounce of Christmas joy. It just hurts too much.
Here’s the good news: God gets that.
Honestly that’s the whole reason God gave. God came.
As with Job, he comes to speak words of comfort to you.
Like all of Israel, waiting and looking for a Messiah. Suffering under foreign and oppressive rule. That’s why in the midst of the Story there’s the story of Simeon. This righteous man was desperately seeking God’s promised redemption.
And because he was looking, when Jesus was brought to the temple–Simeon recognized him as God’s consolation. He’s arrived!
When Paul wrote to the Corinthians the passage I quoted above, he was at the bottom of the bottom. He was so low he was ready to die. (Go ahead and read the rest of chapter one and you’ll get the picture.)
But as low as he was, he recognized that God was still there to be the God of all comfort and consolation. And he also knew that he had received this balm for his heart to share it with others.
Way back in the Old Testament, God told Abraham that he was blessed to be a blessing (see Genesis 12:2). If you are mourning, grieving, feeling the pain of some loss this Christmas season, look up. God has come where you are. He gave his son a gift to you. Hear his words of comfort. Sense his heart’s ache for you.
Then share the blessing. You have been comforted to be able to share the comfort with other.
You may now return to your regularly scheduled celebration…and hopefully it will include many more people and blessings.
I am not a seasoned traveler. No matter how many times I go to visit my mom, I feel like a newbie all over again. I still get nervous when the plane takes off and lands.
One thing I have learned is to pack less. It’s much easier to travel with a lighter bag and just enough to entertain myself on the flight.
On my recent trip to visit my mom, I watched people tugging and lugging huge backpacks and bulging roll-on bags. They were juggling coats and coffee, books and briefcases. They wrestled them into the overheads and scrunched them to fit under the seat in front of them. So much energy was expended…wasted. So much frustration. A few broken nails. And lots of colorful language–cover the children’s ears.
It reminded me of something I read in Max Lucado’s book, Traveling Light. He tells the story of a time when he was away at a speaking engagement and he didn’t realize until he arrived at his hotel room that he had claimed the wrong bag. He goes on to talk about how no sane person would keep the wrong bag–what would he do with women’s clothing? His point: often we carriage baggage that is not our own.
Unwanted baggage can infiltrate our Advent and Christmas experience, too. Ebenezer wasn’t the only one who has nightmares from ghosts of Christmases past.
What would happen if we carried less into the holidays? Perhaps if we projected less from the past into the present and traveled lighter? We might find more energy to enjoy the present.
As I was thinking about this I was reminded of the image of Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem. On that arduous journey they only carried the essentials. It was probably good since they ended up having to flee to Egypt.
In the midst of his ministry to the masses, Jesus looked out on the crowd and had compassion on them. I picture him lifting his arms in invitation as he said: 28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30, NIV).”
Light burdens. That’s the gift he brings. Sounds like the best way to travel to me.
I love Christmas cookies. I love cookie exchanges.
My mom never made Christmas cookies–any cookies, actually. It wasn’t until I was in Girl Scouts that I ever iced sugar cookies.
Did I mention I love cookies? I don’t think I ever met a problem a Doule Stuff Oreo (or whole bag) couldn’t solve. I have eaten way more than my fair share in my fifty-six years.
Last Christmas a friend invited me over to decorate cookies. It sounded like fun so I showed up. She had several bowls of homemade icing and trays and trays of cut-out cookies in all the traditional Christmas shapes.
I sat down at the table and very carefully and gingerly began to ice and decorate with sprinkles.
She laughed at me. Then she asked me what I was doing.
I looked at her rather shocked at first. I mean, what did it look like I was doing. Then it dawned on me that she had finished decorating a half dozen cookies to my one. I was so afraid to “mess up” that I was not enjoying the experience at all. My perfectionism was totally tying me up and shutting me down.
My friend then very quickly went to work assuring me that there was no wrong way to do this. She’s a very wise woman. I decided to believe her. The result was that we had a fun time. In the end there were plenty of iced cookies and neither of us were fretting about the icing or sprinkles on the table…I don’t think we were fretting at all.
And a truth seed was planted in my heart that brought a breath of freedom into my life.
Too often my perfectionistic roots strangle my creativity, my living, and living life to its fullest (See John 10:10). I have noticed that I’m not alone in this as I have listened to friends discuss their struggle with finding and doing God’s will…his perfect will.
Choices that I made in my life really messed things up for me. I was afraid life was over. Somehow I thought that life progressed in a straight line moving up. But it looked more like a jumbled mess.
What if the truth is that God loves us enough to let us make mistakes? What if there isn’t one plan/path and if we don’t find it and only walk down that one and instead meander a little? What if there isn’t one perfect job, but a series of jobs where we have the opportunity to touch many lives and make a difference in many places? What if there isn’t one perfect mate, but more than one…or none?
There are those who would consider such thinking blasphemous. I wonder what they do when the cords get jumbled up?
There is a verse that is often quoted from Jeremiah: For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11)
There is certainly comfort in that verse…but it’s also pretty vague. And when you put it in context it’s even more interesting. Go ahead read the whole chapter.
Life is not always neat and tidy. Sometimes it’s jumbled up. Sometimes it’s even messier than a table after preschoolers attempt to decorate Christmas cookies. But God is still there. He’s still planning for hope and a future. He can make something beautiful if you’ll ease up and let him.
He is after all, the one who promised to give us life…life to the fullest.
Pot of Manna 