“Let the just rejoice,for their justifier is born.
Let the sick and infirm rejoice,
For their saviour is born.
Let the captives rejoice,
For their Redeemer is born.
Let slaves rejoice,
for their Master is born.
Let free men rejoice,
For their Liberator is born.
Let All Christians rejoice,
For Jesus Christ is born” (St. Augustine of Hippo (AD 354-440).
I think this sums it up nicely, don’t you?
“While fulfilling these sacred obligations at the temple, they encountered a man in Jerusalem named Simeon. He was a just and pious man, anticipating the liberation of Israel from her troubles. He was a man in touch with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit had revealed to Simeon that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Anointed One. The Spirit had led him to the temple that day, and there he saw the child Jesus in the arms of His parents, who were fulfilling their sacred obligations. Simeon took Jesus into his arms and blessed God.
Simeon: Now, Lord and King, You can let me, Your humble servant, die in peace.
You promised me that I would see with my own eyes
what I’m seeing now: Your freedom,
Raised up in the presence of all peoples.
He is the light who reveals Your message to the other nations,
and He is the shining glory of Your covenant people, Israel.
His father and mother were stunned to hear Simeon say these things. Simeon went on to bless them both, and to Mary in particular he gave predictions.
Simeon: Listen, this child will make many in Israel rise and fall. He will be a significant person whom many will oppose. In the end, He will lay bare the secret thoughts of many hearts. And a sword will pierce even your own soul, Mary” (Luke 2: 25-35).
Picture Simeon. He’s an old man, nearing the end of his days. He’s been waiting for the promised Messiah for as long as he can remember. In fact, the prophecies of that coming Anointed One date back to hundreds and thousands of years before he was born.
Simeon waited almost his entire life to see a promise of God fulfilled.
How long are you willing to wait?
Every advertisement tells us that we are due to get what’s ours right now. No waiting. We live in a world of instant gratification where waiting isn’t looked upon in a good light.
Are you willing to wait as long as it takes? Simeon was, and the payoff made it so much more than worth it.
Wait for the Lord. His promises are sure and true. They are coming, even if they don’t arrive on your timetable. They will come.
Don’t give up.
I confess. I’d really like to see a white Christmas. I mean I’d REALLY, REALLY like to see a WHITE CHRISTMAS. But I live in Tennessee, so the chances of that happening are about the same as those Tennessee Titans of mine actually making a run at the playoffs. In other words, not quite nil but very close.
It doesn’t seem like Christmas when it’s short-sleeves weather. It’s hard for me to get into the spirit of the season when I’m turning on the AC in my car on the way home from work.
Ultimately, what makes Christmas Christmas isn’t snow or freezing temps. It’s Christ. If it ends up being north of 80 degrees this Christmas Day and Jesus is present, I’ll be so much more than okay with that.
Unfortunately, it’s easy to take my eyes off even that during these frantic, fast-paced days. I lose sight of what I’m celebrating and get bogged down in slow traffic and bad drivers (obviously not me– no sarcasm there). Too many will only see the darker side of humanity and miss the fact that that’s why Jesus came– to rescue us from ourselves. If we were such kind and generous people all the time, we probably wouldn’t need rescuing.
I know I still need rescuing from time to time. That’s why I love Christmas. It reminds me that when I couldn’t get to God, He came to me. He became my Savior. My Redeemer. My Rescuer.
So I’m still holding out hope for snow on Christmas Eve. Even if it only flurries for a bit and doesn’t stick, I’d be good. At this point, it’d take a miracle.
The good news is that Christmas is all about miracles and the impossible becoming reality. It’s God doing what people said could never be done. Just look at Jesus.
“Joy, it’s always a function of gratitude — and gratitude is always a function of perspective. If we are going to change our lives, what we’re going to have to change is the way we see” (Ann Voskamp).
I love the 1951 version of Scrooge, known to us Americans as A Christmas Carol. Most of what I love about the movie is how giddy Ebenezer Scrooge is at the end when he discovers the true spirit of Christmas. That gets to me every single time.
I’m thinking about a Facebook friend who posted about how much she hated Christmas, partly due to the fact that all she saw were the crazy spending, the long lines, the push-and-shove grab-all-you-can mentality.
That’s not Christmas. At least that’s not what Christmas is truly all about.
Joy does come when you shift your perspective from what is seen, i.e. the money exchanging hands, to the unseen, i.e. what can never be bought and can never be earned but only received as a free gift.
I often lose perspective, especially in Nashville traffic. But I always love being reminded that as a believer saved by that amazing grace, I have more reason than anyone to have unspeakable joy.
I hope you never forget who you were when Jesus found you. I hope you never lose the feeling of that moment when your life changed forever and you went from being a nobody set on a dead end street to a child and heir of God bound for something much better than anyone has ever dreamed.
Jesus now and Heaven ahead. Actually, Jesus now and then Jesus AND Heaven ahead. There will always be Jesus.
I love that I discovered Advent later in life because I appreciate it so much more than if I had grown up with it. I also love that I am still coming to understand the full extent of what that unspeakable joy looks and feels like.
I hope and pray that never gets old for any of us who have ever experienced it.
The end.
A lot of people have an if/then kind of faith. It goes something like this:
If God allows me to experience the fullness of the American dream, then I’ll keep believing.
If God grants me a spouse and children, then I’ll keep believing.
If God sees to it that my children follow in my footsteps and my faith and never disappoint me, then I’ll keep believing.
If God blesses me financially and lets me live comfortably, then I’ll keep believing.
That’s probably what most American Christians believe, although few would be brave enough to confess it.
This is biblical faith:
I will keep believing, no matter what.
If I never get married and have children, I’ll keep believing.
If I never get to where I can live comfortably, I’ll keep believing.
Even if I watch as each of my dreams die, even if God never does one solitary thing more for me beside saving me and granting me this life abundant, I’ll keep believing for as long as He grants me life.
The prophet Habakkuk put it this way:
“Though the cherry trees don’t blossom
and the strawberries don’t ripen,
Though the apples are worm-eaten
and the wheat fields stunted,
Though the sheep pens are sheepless
and the cattle barns empty,
I’m singing joyful praise to God.
I’m turning cartwheels of joy to my Savior God” (Hab. 3:17-18).
If/then faith says that you need more than God, that He isn’t sufficient in and of Himself. It might work for a while, but it eventually falters when the hard times come.
No matter what faith says that God alone is, has been, and will always be enough. It keeps believing, keeps hoping, keeps trusting through any and every circumstance (much like what Paul talked about in 1 Corinthians 13). That kind of faith not only lasts, but it keeps you going.
I choose to believe no matter what.
The end.
I suck at math. Big time.
It’s a very good thing that WordPress keeps track of how many of these blogs I’ve written because I would have hopelessly and gloriously lost count a while ago. Like around post #16 or so.
So, according to the good folks at WordPress, this is blog #1,964. That’s not bad considering that I only started writing these things 5 1/2 years ago.
There have been stretches where I feel inspired, where the words flow like they’re coming from somewhere other than me.
Then there are times when I feel like I’m writing a “Dear Diary” entry along the lines of “I woke up. I went to work. I had coffee. I worked. I went home. The end.”
I’ve “borrowed” from a few of my favorite writers that have spoken my own thoughts at the time better than I could have.
I remain surprised at who reads these things that I never would have expected. My favorite is probably a friend named Erica who has since moved back to the Atlanta area and who I miss terribly, even though I never really saw her that much.
I may never get to the land of the million readers per post, but I’m okay with that. I have a unique take on things that isn’t meant for just anybody. It takes a special kind of reader (and probably a special kind of medication, too).
So basically, this came about because I ran out of topics to write about, so I ended up writing about the process of writing. That’s deep for a Friday evening when my brains have turned to mush.
The rest of this is just filler so that I can get to that coveted 300 word mark. It serves no real purpose other than to take up space.
That’s all I got tonight.
The end.
I am officially over the rain. I liked it for a bit, then it got old. Then it continued to rain.
I spent more than double my usual commute time from work to the Starbucks on Franklin Road in Brentwood where my friend and I meet weekly to walk and talk.
Thankfully, I had classic 90’s tunes in the form of the fantastic album, Surfacing, by Sarah McLachlan. I do believe that 90’s music by and large is better than the current pop music playing on most radio stations.
Still, I got stuck in traffic. At times, I’m fairly certain I could have gotten out of my car and walked faster than I was driving.
I don’t know what it is, but being in extended traffic makes me weary. I suppose it’s from being constantly hyper-aware of all those drivers around me (including those numbskulls who STILL don’t have their lights on in the rain EVEN after my last blog specifically on that topic).
Ultimately, being stuck in traffic means that I have a job to drive to and from, a car to drive in, and a me that is healthy and able to drive said car to said workplace. That in itself outweighs and inconveniences caused by traffic delays and the snail’s pace.
It’s still all about perspective. Before you complain about your life, remember that you still have it better than most of the world’s population. In fact, most people would give anything to have your problems versus the ones that they are facing.
Before you whine about being the 99%, remember that if you have a roof over your head, more clothes than the ones on your back, more than one meal a day, running water, transportation, and cash in your pocket, globally speaking, you are the 1%.
Plus, I had a very good chestnut praline latte at Starbucks to reward myself for not losing my everloving mind over being in the car so long.
All in all, I’d call it a good day.
“We say, then, to anyone who is under trial, give Him time to steep the soul in His eternal truth. Go into the open air, look up into the depths of the sky, or out upon the wideness of the sea, or on the strength of the hills that is His also; or, if bound in the body, go forth in the spirit; spirit is not bound. Give Him time and, as surely as dawn follows night, there will break upon the heart a sense of certainty that cannot be shaken” (Amy Carmichael).
I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around what happened in Paris.
Granted, I didn’t even hear about it until I’d gotten home from work.
I turned on CNN and saw where at least 153 people had been killed in what looks like ISIS terrorist attacks on innocent civilians.
If it happened there, it could happen here. But still, the fact that it happened anywhere matters. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Attacks on liberty are a threat to liberty anywhere and everywhere.
I still don’t know why things like that happen. I know it’s a fallen and broken world. I know that people are capable of the worst acts, as evidenced by the Holocaust and Slavery and a million other atrocities.
I also know that God is in control.
I know that God can take the worst tragedies and turn them into something beautiful.
I still believe that in the end, Love wins. Jesus wins.
I know and believe with all my heart that, try as it might, darkness can never truly drive out the light. The only failure is a failure of the light when it refuses to shine.
I’m praying for Paris. I’m praying for all those who are burdened by oppression and injustice tonight.
May God have mercy on us all.
“By faith Abraham heard God’s call to travel to a place he would one day receive as an inheritance; and he obeyed, not knowing where God’s call would take him. By faith he journeyed to the land of the promise as a foreigner; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, his fellow heirs to the promise because Abraham looked ahead to a city with foundations, a city laid out and built by God.
By faith Abraham’s wife Sarah became fertile long after menopause because she believed God would be faithful to His promise. So from this man, who was almost at death’s door, God brought forth descendants, as many as the stars in the sky and as impossible to count as the sands of the shore” (Hebrews 11:8-12).
“That’s what Scripture means when it says, ‘Abraham entrusted himself to God, and God credited him with righteousness.’ And living a faithful life earned Abraham the title of ‘God’s friend'” (James 2:23, The Voice).
I like Abraham. I can relate to Abraham.
Sure, he was the father of many nations. Sure, he’s the one through whose line came the Messiah, the Hope of the World.
But he also had clay feet at times.
Remember the time when he lied about his wife, saying she was his sister? Twice?
Remember when he tried to help God out by agreeing to go to bed with Sarah’s servant Hagar to produce the heir God promised?
Remember when Abraham had a hard time believing that God could keep His word in giving him a child?
Yeah, I can relate to all of that. Abraham’s my kind of guy.
The Bible is full of people like that. Not saints in the sense of people who walked through life with halos hanging over their heads who never messed up or got a hair out of place or got their knickers in a bunch. More like saints who stumbled and fell often, but kept getting back up, kept trusting in the next step, kept trusting that God knew where he was leading them through all the deserts and foreign countries.
Sometimes faith is simply showing up and taking the next step, trusting that God knows where He’s leading you. As Corrie Ten Boom said, faith is trusting the conductor of the train when it goes into a pitch black tunnel instead of jumping off the back of the caboose.
I suppose we’re all thankful that even faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains and uproot trees. It can change stubborn old hearts like yours and mine.
Best of all, faith leads you to the place where God is, where you were always meant to be, the place where your heart can rest.
I have the crud, so I invited a guest blogger to share his thoughts. Well, I copied and pasted from something C. S. Lewis wrote. It blew my fuzzy, hay-fevered mind. I hope it blows your mind as well.
“An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God.
But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him.
But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God—that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him.
You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying—the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on—the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal.
So that the whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers. The man is being caught up into the higher kinds of life—what I called Zoe or spiritual life: he is being pulled into God, by God, while still remaining himself” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).
You’re welcome.
Praying starts and ends with God. Sure, I bring my needs and wants to God, but sometimes there are no words. Sometimes, I need to know that God inside of me is praying to the God above me through the God in Christ who is beside me.
That’s prayer.
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