“Put all ‘supposing’ on one side and dwell in the shadow of the Almighty. Deliberately tell God that you will not fret about that thing. All our fret and worry is caused by calculating without God” (Oswald Chambers, Run Today’s Race).

I’m aware that not all anxiety is a choice and sometimes you can’t just “pray it away” or “have more faith.” Sometimes, you need counseling and medication.

But I also know that worrying is a choice. It’s focusing on tomorrow’s problems before they even get here. And the kicker is that most of the so-called problems and issues you worry about never end up happening. So all that fretting and worrying is wasteful and pointless. Plus, you rob today of joy by always thinking about tomorrow. So says the one who spends way too much time worrying and fretting over dumb stuff.

The key is learning to dwell in the shadow of the Almighty. Just like Jesus talked about the branch abiding in the vine. Just like Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus instead of constantly rushing about in a state of panic over a never-ending to-do list. Just like Jesus in the boat, sleeping in the midst of a storm.

Maybe the word for 2021 is abide. If I could ever learn to abide in God, I think I’d worry about stuff a lot less. Don’t you?

I think I finally figured out why I’m always a little sad when Christmas Day is over. It took me 40-something years, but I believe I now know the answer.

Christmas is first and foremost about Jesus, the baby born in a manger to save us all.

But Christmas is also a time of remembering.

For me, Christmas is a time when I think about all the people that I love who are gone. It’s about places and events that live now only in my memory.

Every time I catch a whiff of a burning candle or see colored Christmas tree lights, I turn 10 years old again. All those faces of the ones who aren’t here anymore are just a little clearer and closer in my mind. I can remember some of the gifts, not because of what they contained but because of who gave them to me.

I miss these people a little more around the Christmas season. My heart hurts a little more because I won’t ever see them again this side of heaven.

But the good news of Christmas is that goodbye isn’t really goodbye. It’s more of a “see ya later, alligator.” Death isn’t the end anymore. Because of what started in Christmas in a manger and ended up on Easter on a cross, I have hope.

I will see my loved ones again. They won’t be old and sick and in pain. They will know me and know my name. They will be strong and healthy and more alive than they’ve ever been before.

So I’m a little sad after this latest Christmas has come and gone, but I’m also filled with a little more hope than this time last year. That Christmas spirit of remembering and loving doesn’t have to end on December 26, but can live on as long as I hold fast to the hope I have in the Jesus of both the manger and the cross.

“Why Christmas never ends now — how it is just beginning: 

This day, this night, the Light comes — and whose heart isn’t kindled by this Love that’s a wildfire? 

The world will be still tonight. 
There will be lingering. Longing. We will long for this wonder to all go on. One Christmas candle will flame in the quiet. 

This cannot ­fade—­none of this can ever fade. ‘For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given’ (Isaiah 9:6, NKJV). *God is with us.* 
God *stays* with us. 
The Christmas candle burns hot, Christ gives His Light — ­and the world lights up, and Christmas goes on forever now. 

Christ, the always Gift for all our days” (Ann Voskamp, The Greatest Gift).

That’s why I know that the sadness of the season of Christmas being over will pass. Even after all the ornaments and decorations are packed away in storage, Christmas will remain. When all the radio stations go back to their regular playlists, the spirit of Advent lingers still.

Emmanuel has come not just to visit but to dwell, not just for a season but forever. He Himself has said that He will never leave us nor forsake us.

That’s the hope that carries us through all the darkest days that anything and anyone can throw at us, because we know that the Light of the World still burns brightly. And nothing can snuff it out.

“Let Your goodness Lord appear to us, that we
made in your image, conform ourselves to it.
In our own strength
we cannot imitate Your majesty, power, and wonder
nor is it fitting for us to try.
But Your mercy reaches from the heavens
through the clouds to the earth below.
You have come to us as a small child,
but you have brought us the greatest of all gifts,
the gift of eternal love
Caress us with Your tiny hands,
embrace us with Your tiny arms
and pierce our hearts with Your soft, sweet cries.”
St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)

In case 2020 wasn’t surreal enough already, I woke this morning to the news that someone deliberately set off an explosion in downtown Nashville that devastated several buildings in and around 2nd Avenue and Church Street.

Thankfully, the police were able to evacuate just about everybody in the area before the bombs detonated. But who does something like that on Christmas Day? Seriously?

It was a sharp reminder that we live in a beautiful but broken world. Nothing here below is as it should be. Tornadoes, pandemics, social injustices, hate, indifference, poverty, neglect, and death are all the result of free will choosing poorly.

But Christmas is a reminder that hope is born again. That infant in the manger in every nativity set is still God breaking through into our world to set things right again. Even now, we see glimpses of how everything should be and one day will be.

As much as I love Christmas, I think I’m ready for this year to be over and for the new year to start. Every day that I live and get older, I’m more and more ready to see God’s kingdom come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. I’m ready for Jesus to come back, not in the way of a helpless infant but as conquering King and Hero to all who have longed for His appearing.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

I’m a fan of traditions, especially around the Advent/Christmas season. I’ve always been a fan of traditions like the reading of the Christmas story out of Luke 2 every Christmas Eve or having egg nog at midnight every Christmas.

For me, I have a few:

1. I always like to visit the Opryland Hotel at some point in December to see all the halls decked out and all the festive decorations in full glory.
2. I make a point to watch White Christmas in all its technicolor glory on Christmas Eve.
3. Although it’s not every year, most years we have lasagna on Christmas Eve. That one goes back as far as I can remember to my days on Fox Meadows Road in Memphis, Tennessee.
4. I guess this counts, but the Christmas tree has a lot of “vintage” ornaments and tinsel and other decorations that go back to ye olden days– some even before my time, believe it or not. A lot of them are homemade and looking a little worn and weary, but they still have a place on the tree.

What are some of your favorite Christmas traditions? What do you look forward to most about this most wonderful time of the year? I’d love to see them here and possibly steal . . . I mean borrow one or two to have a new tradition of my own one day down the road.

Whatever the case, I wish you and yours a very merry Christmas and a blessed and happy new year!

Oh, c’mon. You know it’s funny.

I don’t even dislike the song. I do find it gets a bit repetitive after a while, but I like the overall message. I even like the 70s holiday special with the drummer boy and the cute little pet lamb.

At this point in the year with all the extra craziness on top of the usual holiday madness, I thought you might could use a respite from everything COVID. Hopefully, this made you smile– even if you groaned first.

Oh, and you’re welcome.

“Just like the promised Messiah didn’t come in the way most people expected, so God’s promises often come in ways other than what we expect. Just like Jesus didn’t look or sound like most people’s idea of a Messiah, so God’s answers often look and sound different from what we thought they should be. But God always has a higher and better purpose and mind and He alway, always, always gives His children the very best!”

I didn’t put quotes around that last paragraph because I like to quote myself, which would be as awkward as liking your own social media posts, but because I wanted to distinguish what I wrote 10 years ago from what is current.

God’s promises remain true. Even when they don’t look or sound or feel like we expect. Especially in a year where nothing went as expected.

For certain, God’s arrival didn’t look anything remotely close to what people expected.

They expected pomp and circumstance; instead, they got swaddling clothes and a manger.

They expected royalty; instead, they got poverty.

They expected a majestic King; instead, they got a helpless infant.

They expected heralds announcing the news to all the elite; instead, they got smelly shepherds telling whoever they could find that the Messiah had come.

They expected a conquering hero who was to deliver them from Rome; instead, they got a suffering servant who was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief who was to deliver them from sin and shame.

The good news in this season of thwarted expectations is that the promises of God are still yes and amen. They are still true. And this Emmanuel, God with us? He’s still with us — yesterday, today, and forever.

I’ve had a few alterations to my plans for 2020. To put it mildly. I think most of you have. I’m fairly certain that every single one of us in 2015 got the question wrong of “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

I think about Joseph from the Bible. The one engaged to Mary, not the one with all the jealous brothers. He had plans. He probably wanted to live a respectable and quiet life with his wife. He probably wanted to honor God and to leave a legacy behind for his children and their children to follow.g

Little did he know that God had other plans. To say that Joseph experienced a few alterations to his plans is also putting it mildly. Both Joseph and Mary saw their plans for the future wrecked and demolished into oblivion. Every dream they had for their own futures got destroyed.

But, you know what? God had something better. Way better.

What could be better than giving birth to the Messiah, the very God incarnate? What could possibly be better than raising the Savior of the world?

On a side note, it’s interesting that Joseph says yes to God’s plans based on nothing more than a dream and a promise he made to Mary. He didn’t get the angel. He didn’t get the proclamations and heralding. He got one dream and a reminder of the vows he had made to Mary.

What happened was that all those dreams of respectability got dashed to pieces. He would always be known as the father to a son that wasn’t biologically his. There would always be whispers about where that baby had come from.

Nothing that either Joseph or Mary could have ever dreamed of came close to the dreams God had for them. Nothing in their wildest imaginings could prepare them for the reality of God’s plan for their lives.

And so it is with us. God never takes away from us simply to take away. He always takes to give something better, something bigger, something bolder than we could ever ask or imagine or think or dream up.

One day, we will look back at it all and see that it could not have possibly worked out any better than it did. We will understand that the disappointments and dashed dreams were nothing compared to the glorious reality that unfolded before us.

One day, it will all be worth it. And if it’s from God, He will also make it worth it along the way.

I believe this originated with Ravi Zacharius Ministries:

“A lament is a prayer searching for understanding and peace in the midst of suffering or disheartening circumstances. The Old Testament psalmists and prophets wove many such prayers of lament into their writings. Below is a prayer of lament over the coronavirus pandemic. 

Hear our cry, Almighty God. Listen to our prayer. How long will we have to hide in our homes from this invisible enemy? Where will it strike next? And whom? And what if…? Our screens relay a continuous escalation of suffering and death around the world. Panic and anxiety abounds. Our souls are weary from the strain of the life-altering unknowns. 

Heavenly Father, from the depths of our pain and confusion, we cry out to You. From fear-filled hearts and anxious minds, we plead with You. Rescue us, Father of compassion and grace. We lift up our eyes to You, Lord God, the One who sits enthroned in heaven. 

On all who have contracted the virus

Lord have mercy 

On all who have lost loved ones to this sickness and are in mourning and anguish 

Lord have mercy 

On all who are unable to earn an income because their jobs have been suspended 

Lord have mercy 

We cry out for healing and needed resources

We cry out for comfort and peace

On all medical professionals and caretakers attending to those infected with the virus

Christ have mercy

On all scientists and technologists striving to find a vaccine and to make it available 

Christ have mercy 

On all leaders of institutions and governments as they make decisions to try and contain the virus

Christ have mercy

We pray for strength in the long and exhausting hours of labor 

We pray for wisdom in the research and difficult decisions

On all who have not yet contracted the virus

Lord have mercy

On the most vulnerable of our society who are unable to buy extra food or get proper medical attention

Lord have mercy 

On all disciples of Jesus Christ discerning how to reflect His love to others within this crisis

Lord have mercy 

We plead for protection of health

We plead for all to remain calm and kind

The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the expanse of the universe. And yet this earth is no longer as You created it to be. Holy Father, our earth groans from the devastation caused by the curse of the Fall. My God, Your Word is true. One day You will liberate creation from its bondage to decay and death. 

Life is sacred and precious in your sight. You are the God Who sees us and sustains us. Nothing can separate us from the Father’s unfailing love and kindness, not even sickness or the fear of tomorrow. You are our Light as we walk in this darkness. We will remember to celebrate the beautiful gifts You have given us in this present moment. 

Almighty God, You are our Rock, our Refuge from the enemy, our hiding place.

You calm our frantic thoughts and fill our despairing hearts with joy and strength. 

In Your Presence living water springs forth in the wilderness.

You restore our souls.”

“Let the stable still astonish:
Straw-dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child,
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough.
Who would have chosen this?
Who would have said:
“Yes, Let the God of all the heavens and earth
Be born here, in this place”?
Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms of our hearts and says,
“Yes, let the God of Heaven and Earth be born here– in this place.”
Leslie Leyland Fields (from Let the Stable Still Astonish)

That still amazes me. That God would choose the dark, foul rooms of my own heart to be born in blows my mind just as much as God coming to a poor teenage girl wedded to a poor carpenter who chose a stable for the delivery of their firstborn.

That is the ultimate gift of Christmas. Nothing under the tree compares to what’s in your and my hearts in the form of Emmanuel, God with us.

That is the ultimate offer. God wants to be born in you. Jesus wants to dwell in you and live through you and make you like Him.

He doesn’t require you to get your rooms in order, perfectly clean, to move in. All He needs is your availability. All He needs is your Yes to move in. Then He will change everything.