2nd Christmas Thought

It was in God’s time! Elizabeth must have thought that God has stopped hearing her prayers for a child. It was an important matter in “Days of Old” just as it is today to many families desiring children. To have a child signified a blessing of God but Elizabeth was barren. But God had His own timing and Mary was granted not only a child, but the child! The very one that would herald the coming of God Himself.

The story is found in its fullest in Luke chapter 1. It is filled with all sorts of miracles. A message from an angel, the loss of Zechariah’s voice, the special naming of the child the exclamation of Elizabeth and Mary’s song are all folded up into one brief chapter.

How many times would Elizabeth simply settled for a child, any child as long as she could hold her head in pride that God had blessed her womb. Little did she know that God had a special calling for the baby in whom she would give birth.

Do we ever try to rush God. It must be done now and in this way or evidently God is not blessing us. We know what we “need” and we “need” it now but God could have another plan; a plan that will bring us so much more blessing.

We can learn from Elizabeth in everyday life. We can, we should pray that God will bless us. But when that blessing does not come in the way we expected, or in our timing we should give up on God. God’s timing is perfect.

As with Elizabeth’s blessing, ours can be too: “Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, ‘what then is this child going to be?’ for the Lord’s hand was with him” Luke 1:66

Climbs and Recoveries

Yesterday afternoon was the only time Debbie and I had to do some Christmas shopping for all the events that were coming up. At 5:00 pm we headed for San Antonio which is about an hour and half away. (See we do live in the boonies now!) We were careful to hit all the stores in order of their closing times and found ourselves leaving Wal-Mart at 12:30 am. It was late but 98% of all our shopping for presents and food for the holidays was done. So with a huge exhale we headed down Interstate 35 to Cotulla.

By the time we got home and had everything put away it was around 2:00 am. After getting clothes out for the coming day and getting settled in I can remember seeing 2:53 shining on the ceiling of our room. It really does not seem like long ago I could do that night after night and not be affected much. Not any more! Four hours of sleep, which was actually an hour longer than usual, was just not enough to recover.

I have noticed the same thing on bike rides. You can have equal distance in climbs and descents and the downhill just isn’t long enough to recover from the energy expended getting up the hill. I used to look forward to the crest of the hill knowing that soon I would be able to recover from the effort in the climb. Now at my age and physical abilities I don’t recover fast enough to get that excited about the top anymore. It is the end that I smile at now.

You know, actually I do enjoy the climb. Both on a bike and in life the climb is an accomplishment. Yet, after last night’s climb and the short recovery I am now looking forward to finishing today and coming out of my responsibilities and crashing!

I am sure you can find some eschatological/spiritual value in this real life parable. But I am too tired to explain it!

1st Christmas Thought

Thanksgiving is over; we are fatter than we were last week. What else do we need. I know; the exercise of the Christmas season. Yep, it is right around the corner. The Christmas programs are scheduled. The choir is warming up. The decorations are out and being put in their places. We soon will be facing holiday traffic and parking nightmares at the malls. The fear of having left someone off the gift list will become real again. We will check and double check that we have not done more for one than another. Whew! I already feel lighter.

But this is really what Christmas is NOT about. It is about peace, security and the presence of our God with us and like other holidays we all understand that we should have these feelings and devotions all year long. But we don’t! So the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas day helps us to remember.

Between now and Christmas I want to look at seven people in the bible that will help us to have that Christmas attitude (no, not the one that you have when someone zips in front of you to steal that parking place) all year long. Jesus is not simply the “reason for the season”, He is the “reason beyond the season”.

Isaiah, the Old Testament prophet, had grown up during the reign of Uzziah. This Jewish king had been renowned for his efforts of religious reform and his own personal devotion. This example impacted and a nation and the life of the young prophet. His death cast a long shadow over the nation and all that was righteous began to spiral down.

The young prophet began to look deeper for God’s working in his nation and God honored that devotion with the picture of His majesty and care for the world. In chapter nine Isaiah is given a word of hope and security. “For to us a Child is born, to us a Son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. . .” (Is 9:6-7)

It was this message that transformed the young prophet with a message of hope for God’s people. Isaiah witnessed many terrible things that future kings would do and his own people stepping farther and farther from God. But this message was taken to heart and Isaiah never forgot that ultimately God is in control and has worked in the past, is working now and will continue to work in the future. That is the message of Christmas.

Many across our nation and world today face each day with little hope. They fail to see God working or believe that because things are not like they want them then God must have stepped back and no longer cares for them. I do not believe that everything that happens is “caused” by God or is even in His perfect will. But this I do believe that God cares and everything can in some way be worked for good.

To Isaiah the message was a child would be born. . . To us today the message is that a Child has been born. It has already happened. God has and is dwelling with us now during this beautiful season of Christmas and in the Dog Days of August. We must simply believe enough to look!

Worship "Quick-Time"

We enjoy our conveniences; they speed things up. Imagine how much time you save each morning with your automatic coffee maker, blow dryers and Toaster Studdels. How did the world survive without drive through hamburger joints? Communication is now so much faster with texting taking the place of emails which took the place of typed letters and so on. While I am writing this with “tongue in cheek” I do appreciate those things that do help up save time and make our lives more efficient.

However I do not think some things were meant to be stream lined. There are those things that need to be given attention. Talks with those you love, that lingering look at the sunset just cannot be shortened and still be effective.

Recently I was driving to Fort Worth and a church caught my attention. It wasn’t the architecture which was unusual but a gigantic banner that hung across the front that made me wonder if it was speaking to me. The banner read:

30 MINUTE WORSHIP SESSIONS

If we who call ourselves “people of God”, “followers of Christ”, “devoted Christians” cannot find in our weeks more than thirty-minutes to put all things aside and worship the God who created and loved us enough to give Himself for our eternal salvation then something in our “devotion” must be wrong.

I know how I felt when I saw the banner. I wonder how God felt when it was hung or how he feels each time people enter into His house with just thirty-minutes to give.

I know, nowhere does it say how long worship should be. But, still, it just hits me wrong!

Important Stuff

Last week I had the wonderful opportunity to represent First Baptist Church Cotulla as a messenger to the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting in Fort Worth. This was about an 8 hour drive from Cotulla. After the meeting I was able to visit with my mother, step-father, brother and niece for a night. Wednesday morning found me making the long drive back to South Texas.

One of the great things about long rides alone is that you have a lot of time to sing with the radio or think. I usually think, although I do enjoy singing, but thinking seems to be more productive. I got to thinking about all the people I reconnected with at the convention and the fact that we are now the “older” guys of the religious “establishment”. I thought about the things (however few or eternally important) I had accomplished in my career. Ultimately I felt that most of those were not as important as I thought they were while working to accomplish them. I have come to believe that when all is said and done I desire to know that I have the respect and love of

My Parents
My Wife
My Sons

To know that when we are together and are walking in public they walk with some pride because they are beside me; that is most important! Ultimately I believe at some point in life this becomes the most important thing to us all; Parents, spouse and children.

If that is the case then let me give my part.

Mom. . . I can never repay what you have given for me. I can only start to understand the sacrifice you made for us in the “days” you had to bring up two young hard-headed boys. Thank you

Debbie. . . Never could I have asked for a better partner in this life! It has not been easy and you have made my mistakes look good. We raised two great boys and I am not sure we could ask to do more!

Landall and Shawn. . . Dirt and Water, Dark and Light, Sun and Moon. . . as opposite as two could be but both vital to my existence and identification. You do not yet know what you have meant to me. You both have found what it means to chase a dream even if that dream cost. I am proud of you both!

I cannot say that if you did not make the list you are un-important to me. . .but ultimately these are the smiles and nods of approval I desire!

Skeeters

In August this year I experienced an phenomenon that I had never before. When we moved to South Texas (Cotulla) I noticed one evening that there were no “skeeters” (to some you would say “skeetas”). In every place I have ever lived I have had to deal with the little blood sucking, buzzing in your ear pest. They have always seemed to be very attracted to me and can find me in a large crowd. But I begin to notice there didn’t seem to be any around here. I was told that it was due to the dry climate.

The funny thing was that when we moved here they received almost a solid two weeks of rain. Dry? Well maybe it was a relative statement. It was not long that I began to understand their meaning of dry. It really got dry and it stayed hot! But, there were still not skeeters. I was liking this.

Now that Fall has fully come in South Texas (the daily temperatures are all the way down to high 80’s now) it is still dry but cooler and guess what? Skeeters! These are not the “carry your cow off” size that we had in the panhandle but they are the size of gnats and they are so fast you can’t swat them, but they can bite you. Not only do they bite but they leave these huge itchy bumps. Between your fingers, on your elbows even the soft spot behind your ear. They can get you!

Once again I have tubes of Cortisone everywhere and convinced that to taxes and death we should include SKEETERS.

My Boys

Things happen sometime that either remind you just how much your life stinks or just how fortunate you are. Funny thing is that sometimes both can happen with a few minutes of each other. However, on this day I have been reminded several times of just how fortunate I was (I will not speak for Debbie but I am sure she will agree) with my two sons.

I have probably written five different “blogs” to simply say this. Landall, Shawn your Dad is proud of you. Both of you have faced different situations and have proven that your are fighters. I have all the faith that both of you have “what it takes” and will find your place.

I love you!