For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. –Isaiah 9:6
Merry Christmas everyone!
A Special Thanks to Those who Look To Include Others
Despite humanity being more connected than ever before (at least superficially), there are currently a lot of lonely people out there. For those folks, Thanksgiving is the start of a very hard season.
I’ve been blessed to spend almost every Thanksgiving with family and/or friends, but the odd occasion where that didn’t work out gave me a little taste of the loneliness that can be a hidden difficulty of the holiday season. You add to that all the commercials about people spending time with loved ones, and it starts to feel like you don’t fit in. Even Black Friday commercials and advertisements sting a little bit. After all, what’s the point of all those sales if you already have the stuff you want and you don’t really have anyone to buy for?
Now imagine not just a week, or even a month, of this, but living like this all the time.
Thanksgiving is this week. Do you have a little extra room at your table for someone who’d otherwise be alone? Someone who’s single (young or otherwise), someone whose loved one(s) is/are far away because of business, or someone for whom it just wouldn’t be practical to get home and back for a long weekend (college students, etc.). There are also couples in the same boat who I’m sure would love to be invited to a “Friendsgiving.”
Someday, those who call Christ their Savior will enjoy sweet fellowship all the time. Until we get there though, we do the best we can, and I’m grateful to those that include others who’d ordinarily be alone.
May you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Quick Hit: What are You Actually Celebrating This Week?
This one’s probably going to rub some people the wrong way, but I just need to throw a little reminder out here: sure, Halloween is a fun time to let little kids get dressed up and walk around to neighbors’ houses to get candy, but there’s a whole lot about it that isn’t so innocent.
In the Northern Virginia area, people go crazy with Halloween decorations. While a lot of it is silly and fun, I don’t have to drive very far to see 9-foot-tall skeletons, some pretty demented-looking blood-soaked psychos, and evil-looking supernatural-themed decorations. People go over the top; one family nearby has a husband/dad who loves the scary stuff, but it’s a little too much for the wife/mom. The compromise was to buy an event-style tent so he could put it on the front lawn and fill it with the sicko stuff, because she didn’t want a yardful of it tormenting the kiddos in the neighborhood.
Halloween celebrates death and evil. I’m not sure how we got to the point where we think it’s a good idea to put up “cutesy” 26-foot-tall (no exaggeration) inflatable slashers in our yards.
I’m not going to sit here and say that the birth of Christ in a manger makes for a flashier lawn decoration than some of the craziness I see in peoples’ yards right now, but it is definitely more consequential. If you’re a big decorator during the Halloween season, I don’t think that makes you a bad person. Lots of people make lots of fun and light-hearted skeleton decorations. If you’re a Christian though, does your enthusiasm for Halloween decorations match that of your zeal for Christ-focused Christmas decorations (not Santa, reindeer, icicles, and gift-themed)? Sure, let’s make dress-up fun for the little kids, but remember that the actions you take to celebrate Halloween are helping shape the perspectives of what’s to be celebrated in younger generations. Let’s steer them away from celebrating death and toward celebration of new life and second chances.
This Year’s Patriot Day Message
Today we mark another somber anniversary. Believe it or not, it’s been almost a quarter century since one of the darkest days in the nation’s history.
For those on the younger side, I’m sure you’ve heard of 9/11 and you know what happened and all that, but it’s hard to really convey everything the nation went through that day and how it changed things for us. Imagine the nation as a whole feeling a blend of confusion, horror, fear, anger, grief, patriotism, and rage, all at the same time. As strange as it sounds, people of just about every political persuasion got along with each other in the weeks that followed, because being Americans united us more than it divided us.
There were three sites physically impacted that day: the field in Pennsylvania where the plane whose passengers rose up against their hijackers ended up crashing, the World Trade Center in New York City, and the Pentagon near DC. Watching the images from the site in Manhattan had the biggest effect on me; I had been up on the observation deck multiple times before, and within the previous year or two I’d had lunch with my Mom, Dad, and sister in a park made famous by a picture of an exhausted firefighter. Even though the Manhattan site was the most personal to me, there were lives lost in all three areas, either airline passengers or unassuming souls on the ground. Even though it’s 24 years later, that memory is still powerful to me, and I’m sure many people have similar powerful memories of that day.
This probably isn’t the last time we’ll get a bloody nose (or worse) as a nation. What I can tell you for sure, though, is that it’s not going to be the last time you see a wicked scheme succeed.
The Bible addresses incidents where wrongdoers seem like they’re getting ahead in life. David saw it and wrote about it. In Psalm 37:7-9 we read some of the most difficult instructions in the entire Bible: when you see wickedness seem to prevail, be patient.
“7 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.
8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil.
9 For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land.”
This Patriot Day, take the time to pause and remember the innocents who lost their lives, but remember as a Christian that two wrongs don’t make a right. When you witness evil succeeding, be patient and wait on the Lord; He sees it and will deal with it in His time.
You Can be 100% Right and Still Lose the Debate
One nice thing about having very young kids is having the freedom to vacation without being at the mercy of the school calendar. Before our kids were old enough to start school, we took them for a beach vacation the week of Labor Day, when rates dropped but the weather was still warm.
The Labor Day weekend was packed, of course, with lots of people wanting to cram in one last beach trip for the summer. Once Tuesday rolled around, though, we had the beach to ourselves. Even the lifeguards stopped working. The kids could chase seagulls all they wanted without worrying about anyone else on the beach.
While the kids ran around on the sand, I noticed a guy who was probably in his 50s standing in the dunes, just kind of keeping an eye on us. He was almost, I don’t know, disapproving in the way he watched us. After awhile he came walking across the sand to speak to me. He wanted to remind me that there would be no lifeguards on duty at all that day, and that “even he” wasn’t going to stick around much longer. In my mind I thought “dude, if you left, I’d probably be more at ease. Don’t stick around on my account.” He added something like “it would be a real shame” if we let the kids get too close to the water and something happened to them. Thanks buddy, we drove all this way to come to the beach and not watch the 3-year-old and the almost-2-year-old. I just assumed he was some kind of senior lifeguard switching off summer mode, but without introducing himself, the whole “even he” statement and his “helpful” advice landed in a way he probably didn’t intend. I believe he meant well, but without even introducing himself or stating his role, you can imagine that he just kind of came across as a little condescending.
Have you ever tried to tell people about Christ without taking the time to “read the room” first? Even if you have the purest of motives, people don’t often take kindly to folks who jump into a conversation with them and tell them how they should be living their lives. I’m not saying God can’t use the encounter, but it seems prudent to consider how the people you’re engaging perceive your entry into the conversation. Maybe at least try a little chit chat to demonstrate your willingness to listen to their perspective before hitting them with fire and brimstone or “sinners in the hand of an angry God.”
I’ll concede, though, that if it comes down to a choice between having a curt discussion about the need for Christ and saying nothing at all, being curt takes priority. The Gospel doesn’t get spread without people spreading it. My point here is simply that when you’re about to tell people they’re destined for eternal punishment because they’re living life apart from Jesus Christ, it’s best to have a little empathy because making people defensive right off the bat tends to help them reject what you’re saying.
Going back to the guy on the beach, nothing he said was incorrect. I even think he meant well. It was his attitude and delivery that overshadowed his message and made me want to tell him to buzz off, and I want to prevent anything like that from getting in the way of someone’s acceptance of Christ as their Savior.Lord, I know You call us all to spread the message. Even if I don’t feel well-practiced, give me the words and the boldness to jump in when I feel you calling me to do it. Help me remember that even though I could obsess over not “doing it right,” You can build poor attempts into something magnificent, and are pleased by my obedience.
Sometimes You Just Need To Get Away From it all
After finishing college I moved back in with Mom and Dad for about a year and a half and worked in construction while I tried to figure out what to do with my life. During that time I helped out with the youth group in the church I’d attended since I was a kid.
One of the big events on the youth group’s calendar was a 4-day/3-night retreat over President’s Day weekend at a Christian conference center very close to the church. This particular retreat, dubbed “Winter Weekend,” was a popular one for the churches in our denomination’s district. Churches from Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York sent kids from their youth groups to attend the gathering. I went along to serve as one of the guys’ counselors for our church’s group.
It was a good retreat. There were sports tournaments to compete in, along with a number of Bible sessions featuring praise and worship, and some small group time with just our church’s group. A lot of kids had an emotional encounter with Christ, and a number of them accepted Him as lord and savior of their lives.
About midway through the weekend, the question of weather began to become an issue. All the different churches’ groups were scheduled to depart Monday morning, but a significant snowstorm was on track to hit our area Sunday night and into the wee hours of Monday morning.
Leaders from the various groups collectively conferred with the conference center’s staff to figure out options, and each group decided what was best for their situation. A few of them made the difficult decision to leave early so they could beat the weather. Our group and a few others, on the other hand, decided to stay and ride out the storm, overstaying the scheduled end to the retreat in the process. Since the same storm that was about to hit us would also hit our home school district, we knew the local schools would be shut down for a bit. Our youth leader passed word to all the parents of the retreat’s attendees from our church, and let them know they could pick up their kids directly from the retreat as originally scheduled if they wanted, but otherwise we’d delay our return to the church by about 24 hours.
We went to bed Sunday night, and woke up to some heavy snow the next morning. The staff dug us out with snowblowers and plows, and the township and county began working to clear the local roads. One of my fellow counselors, who had attended Winter Weekend for years as a camper, talked excitedly about how it seemed like a dream come true…having a snowstorm strand us all together a little bit longer during a spiritual high. The cooks managed to cobble together three unplanned meals for us, the conference center managed to scrape up some staff to keep stuff open for a bunch of restless, hungry teens, and the various youth leaders and worship leaders called audibles for some unanticipated programming. It ended up being a very sweet time of togetherness, worship, and focus on the Lord.
I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but opportunities to extend a shared spiritual high don’t come along very often. It seems much more common to be hanging on for dear life as the world’s troubles relentlessly assail you, leaving you bruised and battered.
That’s what makes it all the more important to get a break in routine. Maybe you can’t manage a week-long, or even a weekend-long retreat, but it might be worth investigating anyway. There’s something about putting the normal distractions of life on hold while someone else pours into you spiritually. Does your church have a men’s or women’s retreat coming up? Maybe there’s an opportunity for you to do something along those lines this summer. Consider taking a closer look at those kinds of opportunities, because getting away from the normal routines and daily responsibilities for awhile can be incredibly revitalizing.
Christmas is Over and now it’s Time To Pay the Piper
Christmas is over. Hopefully you were able to enjoy some time with loved ones. Now the other shoe drops, though. January heralds the arrival of the credit card bills.
There’s a reason stress levels are so high this time of year. The period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day is likely the period of highest spending during the whole year for most households. If you were able to sneak through December without dealing with many bills, January’s probably not going to be quite as kind to you. Depending on how much your spending increased during the Christmas season, those bills may put a major strain on your bank account.
Well I don’t have a way for you to make all those problems go away, but I might have something that can help take the sting out of it. For next Christmas, rather than running headlong into your bills using only your regular paycheck, it might help to save up for your Christmas expenses during the whole year. I bring this up now because you’ve got almost an entire year to prepare for the next Christmas. The priority, obviously, is to pay your bills from this Christmas, but if you’re done with that already, you may want to take a look at this strategy.
How much did you spend on this past Christmas? Add everything up. Include those gifts for friends and family that come to mind easily, but what about the less obvious things? Your list might include things like gifts for your kids’ teachers or members of the club you’re part of, white elephant gifts for parties at your work, end-of-year donations, etc. Don’t forget the extra electricity for decorations (indoor and outdoor), the higher electrical demands accompanying the hosting of guests, and additional heat during cold weather. Maybe you picked up some special booze as a Christmas treat. Did you have any extra out-to-eat occasions in late December? Did you have to travel somewhere (gas/tolls/tickets)? Add all of that to your list and tally it up.
After giving it a little thought, maybe that number is a little higher than you expected. Depending on your situation (mainly how many people you purchase gifts for and how extravagant your celebrations are), your total could be anywhere between $200 and $5000 or more. I’m not going to tell you what “right” is, but if you’re feeling pinched, maybe you can make an adjustment now to help prepare for the next round.
Take your total and divide it by the number of paychecks you get in a year. If you get paid every two weeks, you get 26 paychecks a year. If you get paid twice a month, that’s 24 paychecks. After dividing the total cost by the number of paychecks, whatever number you get, that’s the amount you’d need to save per paycheck to cover the same amount of expenses this coming Christmas. Wish you had a little more cash to cover this past December’s festivities? Boost that number a bit. If you did something out of the ordinary that you don’t plan on doing again, like a special trip, you can get away with saving less per paycheck to cover things next time.
Next, it’s a good idea to have a separate bank account for you to start stashing your “Christmas cash.” You could keep it all in your normal account and keep a running tally of how much of that money is set aside for December use, but unless you’re pretty diligent about keeping track of that sort of thing, it gets hard to distinguish how much of that money is just your normal account and how much of it has been set aside for specific use. That’s an easy way for the money to get sucked into other spending throughout the year. Setting up automated ways of funding this account every paycheck makes it easy for you to build your celebration fund without having to actively think about it during the year.
By way of example, if you’re paid every two weeks, $50 per paycheck is $1300 at the end of the year. If you go $60 per paycheck when you get paid twice a month, you’re looking at a total of $1440 by your last paycheck of the year. Even small additions can add up. At those two paycheck rates, saving $5 more each paycheck can mean a total of $120 or $130 more at the end of the year. By this point you probably already got your first paycheck of the new year. Even if you did, January’s still a great time to get started on setting up this kind of system with your bank, credit union, or section of the mattress where you stash your money.
Sacrificing that much per paycheck might be too much of a stretch. I totally understand that, but I’d also ask this…if that’s too much to set aside per paycheck, do you have a reliable plan for paying it off all at once if you don’t use a method like this? If for one reason or another this strategy isn’t going to work out for you, consider doing most of the year’s paychecks like this and taking a break when needed, or only saving half or two-thirds the amount per paycheck and coming up with the rest via whatever method you’ve been using. Either way will help cushion the blow if you’re not already doing something similar.
If You Could Choose Anywhere and Any Time…
Imagine if you could choose where, when, and under what circumstances you were born. If you’re perfectly fine with how things worked out for you, that’s great, I’m not trying to make you unhappy with your upbringing. But think of the possibilities. Many people would probably choose to be born to rich parents, or maybe to royalty, or if nothing else, in a nicer climate or better location than where you started out.
Of course, we have no way of choosing where or when we’ll be born, our ancestral lineage, or the circumstances of our birth. It’s something we all accept as being beyond our control. That’s what makes it so hard-hitting when we look at Old Testament scriptures to see “before-it-happens” predictions of where and how the Messiah would be born. There are a number of Bible verses describing the coming Christ’s future birth:
Isaiah 7:14 – Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Genesis 49:10 – The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
Micah 5:2 – But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.
Isaiah 11:1 – There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
Now aside from the virgin birth part of it, I can see how a skeptic might say “well, okay, but if you make enough predictions, you’re bound to get something right.” You know what? I agree with that. Here’s the thing, though. The verses listed so far only pertain to Christ’s birth. When you add in predictions about the Messiah’s demeanor, about His riding on a foal, that He never suffers a broken bone, the nature of His death, etc., you start really narrowing the possibilities down in a way that excludes random chance. While it might be possible to fulfill a few of them by chance, things start to get mind-blowing when someone comes along and fulfills all of them.
I heard somewhere that the odds of anyone fulfilling all the prophecies related to the Christ were fewer than one in 80 billion. I think we get desensitized from movies about how astronomically unlikely it is to overcome such odds. The computer virus gets beaten. Han Solo successfully navigates the asteroid field. Tom Cruise saves the day. Let’s bring this a little closer to real life. The odds of winning the MegaMillions lottery earlier this week were a little better than 1 in 303 million. If those odds remained the same from drawing to drawing, you’d hit the MegaMillions jackpot over 260 times before reaching the same level of likelihood as a single individual fulfilling all those messianic prophecies.
Even if you don’t believe in God, you’ve got to admit there’s something a little unusual about that. The inference is that Jesus Christ is the predicted Messiah. If that’s true, it has massive implications for you and for everyone you hold dear. Why don’t you take a closer look into it?
Quick Hit: Holiday Curveball
I recently had the opportunity to have a conversation with a woman who had recently received an unwanted diagnosis. It’s something that, to say the least, is taking some getting used to.
During the course of the conversation, there were two encouraging ideas that came up, which can be applied to other peoples’ lives, too:
- This diagnosis didn’t catch God off guard.
- This new set of circumstances in no way changes God’s will for your life.
We’ve all had something come along and take the wind out of our sails. As we get ready to kick off holiday season, please be mindful of the people around you who may be going through a particularly challenging time. The holidays, especially, can be a trying time, and you may have been placed in their life for such a time as this.
I’m Just Here for the Boo’s
Well happy Halloween, everybody. Anybody still dress up on Halloween now that you’re not a kid anymore?
The event wasn’t a huge thing for me as a kid. I do remember one year, though, I got a paper knight’s mask from Denny’s or some other restaurant, my parents wrapped some kind of box in aluminum foil, gave me a little cardboard sword (also wrapped in aluminum foil), and I used a pot lid as a shield. I was one mean-looking knight, let me tell you. I was, probably in my second or third year of college?
No, just kidding. I was a kid, probably 3 or 4 years old.
The fun part about Halloween (aside from the candy) is getting to dress up and pretending to be something you’re not. It’s fun for a few hours. Some people unknowingly embrace a lifestyle like that, though. Jesus called some people out for doing this.
Pharisees and those highly educated on the law held positions of authority and were responsible for teaching God’s word to a people who didn’t have ready access to their own copy of the scriptures. Rather than focus on justice and mercy, the spiritual leaders harped on strict adherence to the tiniest aspects of the law (even going so far as to institute laws God did not command). They did a great job tithing even to the smallest detail (giving the appropriate portion of their herb gardens) and made sure they sternly warned anyone who dared to walk too far on the Sabbath, but they completely neglected the things God actually valued.
When Jesus confronted them on it, here’s what He had to say: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” – Matt 23:27-28
(That was only a portion of what Christ said during an exchange where He didn’t hold much back.)
Jewish law forbade people from touching graves, which caused ceremonial uncleanness. Tombs back then were whitewashed on a regular basis, their brilliance causing them to stand out and warn people away from them. It also helped them look very clean and neat. In combination with sometimes having ornate decorations on the tomb, you could get the impression that these were very nice places to be, almost forgetting the decay, uncleanness, and defilement residing inside.
My point? Sure, have fun dressing up for Halloween for a little bit, but don’t forget…it might be easy to hide your true self from others, but God can peer right through your best costume and knows exactly who you are. If that’s not something you’re happy about, maybe it’s time to make some changes in your life.