Caroling, Caroling

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I did something I haven’t done in a long, long time. Not since college. Maybe even high school. I went caroling, complete with printed sheets of lyrics and everything. Just like it was back in the late 1900s.

It’s been that long.

Back in the day, we’d all gather together and carpool from place to place with our arsenal of festive seasonal classics. I’m sure we were joyful and triumphant in our attempts to pull off the carols and jingles. We probably came closer to making a joyful noise than anything else. I couldn’t tell if the guy next to me was trying to harmonize or was just really off-key, but it didn’t really matter in the end. A good time was had by all.

Tonight, we started off visiting the house of a deacon who very recently had been fighting for his life. It was heartwarming to see him standing in the doorway, a sort of miracle in itself, with his wife wiping away tears of gratitude as we sang loudly and zestily (if not always in tune or in the same key).

Then we headed over to my pastor’s parent’s to do more yuletide crooning. They’ve both had health issues and have had a rough 2022, but they were both pleased and grateful to see us gathered in their front yard, singing about those herald angels.

The last stop was the next-door neighbor who was a founding member of Brentwood Baptist Church along with her late husband. She lost him around this time last year, and I’m sure she was thankful for the company. Christmas is a beautiful time, but sometimes I forget that it’s not the easiest season if you’re missing a loved one.

I snapped a picture of this forlorn little reindeer in one of the yards. Hopefully, someone got a good snapshot of all of us singing in different keys and sometimes different verses at the same time. The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir we were not.

But I’d do it all again tomorrow night if I could. In fact, I hope this caroling thing becomes another tradition that I can look forward to through the spring, summer and fall.

The Most Reluctant Convert

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I did something that I rarely do these days — I went to an actual movie in an actual movie theater. It’s been a while.

Normally, I like to wait for it to hit streaming services because few films are worth paying the current price of movie tickets. But in this case, I made an exception. I wanted to support a faith-based film from a group that I’ve grown to respect as I’ve gotten to know about them, the Fellowship for Performing Arts, led by one Max McLean.

The film is centered around the story of C. S. Lewis’ 10-year journey from atheism to Christianity. Without giving away too much, the narrative device they use to tell the story is unique and compelling. I feel like Mr. McLean masterfully portrayed the title character and the filming locations gave the production a note of authenticity.

But what captivated me most was the way the movie used Lewis’ own words. I believe a lot of the narrative came directly from his autobiography Surprised by Joy. For once, it’s a faith-based film that actually succeeds at being a good film first, and without being preachy or didactic.

It will make you want to dive deep into the writings of C. S. Lewis, both apologetic and fiction, as well as possibly leading you to check out some of writers who inspired him such as George MacDonald and G. K. Chesterton. I can’t recommend it highly enough for anyone who wants a quality movie about the nuances of faith and intellect.

Do Thou for Me

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“Do Thou for me, O God the Lord,
Do Thou for me.
I need not toil to find the word
That carefully
Unfolds my prayer and offers it,
My God, to Thee.

It is enough that Thou wilt do,
And wilt not tire,
Wilt lead by cloud, all the night through
By light of fire,
Till Thou has perfected in me
Thy heart’s desire.

For my beloved I will not fear,
Love knows to do
For him, for her, from year to year,
As hitherto.
Whom my heart cherishes are dear
To Thy heart too.

O blessèd be the love that bears
The burden now,
The love that frames our very prayers,
Well knowing how
To coin our gold.  O God the Lord,
Do Thou, Do Thou” (Amy Carmichael).

There are times when we simply don’t know how to pray for a circumstance or a loved one. Try as we may, the words will not come.

I think even then God hears the groans and sighs of our petitions and knows what they mean. He hears the deepest desires of our hearts and knows best how to grant them.

Even when we have words, they aren’t always the best ones. Sometimes, we ask without such a limited point of view. Sometimes we ask selfishly. Sometimes we have too small a view of God and ask too little.

In Jan Karon’s Mitford series, Father Tim Kavanaugh always has his go-to prayer, or “the prayer that never fails,” as he calls it. The prayer goes “Thy will be done.”

You can never go wrong with leaving the matter in God’s hands.

Different Kinds of Friends

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I wrote this a while back, but it’s still true. God places people in your life for different purposes and for different seasons. Not everyone who is in your life will stay there. Some were meant only to stay for a little while and teach you a specific lesson. Some are meant for a lifetime, but they are precious and few:

You will have several different kinds of friends over your lifetime. God uses each kind to play a part in your life.

You have specialty friends, like work friends or church friends that you only see at specific places (like work or church).

You have seasonal friends that come into your life for a short season to help you grow, to help you through a trial, or to teach you a lesson.

You will have social media friends who you only interact with over Facebook or Instagram. Most of these you will never actually meet in person.

You have secondary friends where you step in when their regular friends aren’t around.

Each friendship is valid and each one can be a blessing if you can appreciate it for what it is instead of wishing it were something else or something more.

But best of all are the special friends. Those are the ones who will go out of their way to make time for you, who will always seek you out and make you feel welcome no matter where you are. Those are for a lifetime.

You can appreciate your specialty, seasonal, and secondary friends, but you cherish and honor your special friends, because they are precious and rare.

Above all, you can even be a friend without receiving friendship in return. You can love and give, expecting nothing in return but the knowledge that God loved you like that when you were least deserving and lovable.

Not the End of the World

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I don’t know if you’ve ever done something incredibly stupid that you instantly regret. I mean the very instant you realize what you’ve done you’re hoping for one of those supernatural remote controls that let you rewind 30 second and replay the scene. Just me? Cool.

I know I’m not alone. I’ve had plenty of those moments where I still have no explanation for what I was thinking or why I did what I did, but so far in every single case up to this point, the world has not stopped turning. Civilization as we know it did not come to a screeching halt. We are all still here.

I love the fact that God, to put it bluntly, factored in our stupidity into His plans. The fact that over and over again the Bible refers to us as sheep isn’t because they’re cute and cuddly. It’s not because of their warm and gentle nature or their great personalities. They’re kinda dumb, to put it mildly.

But they have a great Shepherd. That’s what we also have in common. We have a God who is able to take our worst moments and mistakes and work even those into good. Somehow, those memories you wish you could erase forever become part of your testimony and the very means God uses to fulfill His purposes.

So remember that the planet looks exactly the same before and after your colossal blunder. God is not reacting out of shock or surprise. He knew before you were born not only your name and the number of hairs on your head but also how many dumb things you would do and say in your lifetime. And not one of them ended up screwing up His plan or ending the world.

Think about that as you lay your head on your pillow tonight, and sleep well. God is still in control.

My Kryptonite

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For those who don’t have the nerd gene, kryptonite is that element that is fatal to Superman in the DC Comics. It’s the only thing that can actually kill him. He’s impervious to bullets and anything else, but mix a little kryptonite in his protein shake, and he’s a goner.

I like to think that my kryptonite is a good book sale. Specifically, the Friends of the Library sale at the Brentwood Library that happens roughly every three months. That will get me to buy stuff I don’t need quicker than anything else.

Today, I came home with a couple of CDs and a few books, including a small NIV (even though I already have an unhealthy amount of Bibles in my collection). I mean who out there is still rocking out to CDs anymore? My Jeep doesn’t even have a CD player. But they were super cheap.

So what I want for Christmas this year is willpower. The ability to walk into a book sale and not buy anything. And possibly an extra bookcase or two. Possibly.

Enter His Gates

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“Enter his gates with thanksgiving;
    go into his courts with praise.
    Give thanks to him and praise his name” (Psalm 100:4, NLT).

I must have read this Psalm at least a hundred times before and never noticed that the first verse is not a suggestion but a command. Enter his gates with thanksgiving is God telling us not to wait until the Sunday service starts to begin worship.

The problem with so many of us is that we enter into the presence of God with anything but God on our minds. We’re thinking about what to have for lunch, what Monday’s workload will look like, how to get the kids ready quicker next Sunday, how not to stay up so late on a Saturday again, etc.

The key is having an attitude of worship the other 167 hours of the week and not just the one hour a week that we meet on Sundays. Worship needs to be more than just the four or five songs we sing in any given church service. It should encompass everything we are and everything we do. That’s worship.

If you break down the word, worship = worth + ship. We’re declaring the worth of God, or shipping His worth if you want to use more current vernacular. We’re letting people around us know that God is worth our sacrifice, our serving, and even our very selves. God is worth everything we are and everything we have , , , and then some.

I believe that if we wait until 9:00 am on a Sunday to decide to worship. we’ve missed worship. We’ve turned it into what someone aptly described as Christian karaoke. We’re singing words to songs about God — some songs we know well and don’t have to think about what we’re singing and others we don’t sing because we don’t know them well enough.

My prayer is that our worship is 24/7 and consists of more than singing songs and lifting hands. Lord, make our entire lives an offering of worship to You as living sacrifices that bless and glorify your name. Amen.

Take My Life

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Today’s Worship Initiative devotional song was an old hymn that I hadn’t heard in several years. Today, for the first time I was struck by how these powerful lyrics work as a prayer to the Almighty. Taken as a whole, this hymn is one of sacrificing every part of me to the One who made me. I pray as you read these words they will also be the prayer of your heart to God:

“Take my life and let it be
consecrated, Lord, to thee.
Take my moments and my days;
let them flow in endless praise,
let them flow in endless praise.

Take my hands and let them move
at the impulse of thy love.
Take my feet and let them be
swift and beautiful for thee,
swift and beautiful for thee.

Take my voice and let me sing
always, only, for my King.
Take my lips and let them be
filled with messages from thee,
filled with messages from thee.

Take my silver and my gold;
not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect and use
every power as thou shalt choose,
every power as thou shalt choose.

Take my will and make it thine;
it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart it is thine own;
it shall be thy royal throne,
it shall be thy royal throne” (Frances Ridley Havergal).

6 Take my love; my Lord, I pour
at thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be
ever, only, all for thee,
ever, only, all for thee.”

Where You’re Headed

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Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.”

I doubt he meant it this way, but my take is that what lies within you is Christ, the hope of glory. What lies within you if you are a true born again child of God is God Himself. That is so much bigger than anything that lies behind you or ahead of you.

The truth is that you can’t ever go back and change the past. It’s done. There are no Deloreans or time machines that will take you back to 1955 (or any other time) to fix what you messed up. For better or worse, it’s over and done with and you live with the consequences.

While you may not be able to start over, you do have the power to change your ending. You have the ability to rewrite the outcome of your story. And really what matters most isn’t how you started out but how you finish.

I’ve mentioned more than once that God’s story is heading toward a victorious outcome. The victory is already secure and the outcome is guaranteed. In fact, God’s promises are so sure that you can speak about them in the present tense, as if they’d already come to pass.

Jeremiah 29 talks about God’s future plans for His children. He knows the plans He has for us. That’s where our focus should be. We want to make sure we remain in God’s will so that His good plans for us will be fulfilled in us. We need to remember that having all the success and fame and money in the world is worthless if God’s not in it, but if God is with us, we need nothing else.

Lord, keep our eyes on You and on the heavenly prize You’ve set before us. Keep our eyes on the finish line instead of the starting gate because we will only find You as we move forward instead of constantly looking back. Be with us and be everything we need and we know that Your future for us is good. Amen.

Contentment

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Contentment is probably the most counter-cultural sentiment there is today. To be content is to swim against the current in a culture that tells you that you need x, y, and z to be satisfied. How can you be happy unless you have the bigger house or the faster car or the newest iPhone?

But contentment says, “No thanks. I already have enough. I am enough because God is with me and God is enough.”

Contentment is not the same as complacency. You’re still striving to be the best version of yourself possible. You still want to become more like Christ every single day. But your identity isn’t tied up in performance or possessions but it’s who God says you are in Christ.

Contentment means that you’re not constantly enraged about everything going on around you, not that you are okay with injustice and suffering but you know that ultimately that justice and peace belong to God alone.

Contentment means that you have read the last page of the Bible and know that everything is going to turn out alright. The end has already been written and God wins (and those who are with God and belong to God win). Those who are in Christ win.

Lord, help us to be content in You alone. May we be satisfied with nothing more and nothing less than all that You are and all that You have created us to be. You are enough. Amen.

Hatch or Go Bad

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“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for a bird to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).

You’ve probably heard the age-old excuse for bad behavior — that’s just who I am, take it or leave it.

But the problem is that none of us can stay who we are indefinitely. We’re either moving toward or away from being better people. Or according to the Bible, we’re either becoming more like Christ or more like the world. Staying on the fence isn’t an option.

At some point, we’ve just got to hatch. We have to come out of our shells, so to speak. For many of us, that means becoming more vocal about what we believe, i.e. sharing our faith and having those gospel conversations. It means we can’t expect people to read our minds and our actions to guess what we believe. We have to tell them.

I can’t find where the Bible says that faith comes from seeing our faith acted out. While living what we believe is important and is what shows our faith to be genuine, what people need is to hear our faith proclaimed. We’re supposed to be ready to give an answer for anyone who wonders about the hope we have in Christ.

The problem is that many believers have never grown. They’re still babies in the faith. They never pray or read their Bibles. They don’t know very much about what they believe, much less why they believe it. Too many of them are fair fame for false teaching and cults. Too many are too willing to compromise convictions and doctrine over the illusion of peace and fitting in.

Basically, we all need to grow up. We need to move on from spiritual baby food to being able to feed ourselves on the Word of God and spiritually discern what’s good and what’s false. We need to live lives that will make others ask questions about why we’re different and what makes us different in the best way possible.

Lord, get us out of our shells, so that we can learn what it means to soar like eagles. Help us to grow up in You, so that we know what Your will is and what Your word says, so we can be faithful witnesses to those who need to know You. Amen.

Chris Johnson and Mortality

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For those of us long-suffering Tennessee Titans fans, Chris Johnson was one of the few bright spots in a history filled with a lot of bad teams who were often painful to watch. He was an electric presence on the football field and still holds the NFL record for yards from scrimmage in a single season, set way back in 2009.

It broke my heart when I discovered that he’s currently battling ALS, a nervous system disease that shuts down the body and leaves the person completely incapacitated. I watched the Good Morning America interview with him and Michael Strahan where he couldn’t speak and and to communicate through a computer controlled through eye movements. In a year, he went from relatively healthy to not able to pick up a cup of water. He’s 39 years old.

But I often forget that no one is promised tomorrow. No one is guaranteed 70-80 years of life. I’ve known way too many who didn’t make it to old age, so I don’t ever want to take for granted that I made it to 54. In fact, I’m thankful for every single day that God gives me.

I don’t know where Chris Johnson stands with Christ. I don’t know if he’s a believer, though I’m praying that he is. I do know that hs time left on this earth is limited, but every single person ever born under the sun can say the same. We all have a limited timespan. In the perspective of eternity, our lives, even those that pass 100, are like the dash between the birth year and death year — very short.

But for those who belong to Jesus, who said yes to Jesus to forgive their sins and be their Lord and Savior, death is just a doorway to everlasting life and forever in a place called heaven where God Himself dwells and where there is no more COVID or cancer or AIDS or ALS.

I’m praying for a miracle for Chris. I’m sure many others are as well. It would be an amazing testimony if God healed him of his ALS. But I also know God is not beholden to heal Chris or anyone else. We live in a beautiful but broken world that feels the effects of sin every single day. People get sick and die. People get hurt and die. That’s the reality of life on this side of eternity.

But I’m thankful that this is not all there is. Jesus told us He’s been preparing a place for us since He ascended into heaven nearly 2,000 years ago. I can’t want to see it. I can’t wait to see all those I loved who are there now. Most of all, I can’t wait to see Jesus. More than any pearly gates or golden streets, He’s the one who makes heaven heaven. I hope and pray that everyone reading these words has an assurance of salvation and a future eternity in heaven. If not, it’s not too late while you’re still breathing to choose Christ.