Well it’s really cold here today…although I can’t say its as cold as Alaska or as cold as places in the Arctic circle, but it’s still very cold outside. It’s the kind of day that one just wants to stay in doors for… seeking to pass the time in front of the tube, playing a board game or curled up with a good book in hand, and who knows if a nap comes calling maybe one might answer its gesture into counting forty winks. It’s just that kind of day.
Have you ever had the feeling that there’s too little hours in the day to do what you want to do? Perhaps, you might wonder, what this has to do with this cold day indoors? Well, Indoors on days like this you get to thinking about all of the things you want to do or have to do and from time to time it just feels… overwhelming. We might jot things down in a journal, make ‘todo’ lists, reorganize our shoe rack…I don’t know…maybe this is where cabin fever begins, and the guy in the ‘Shining’ should have found a hobby or made a list instead taking up killing…ok I digress again.
All this to say, its ok to be restless on days like this. Cold, stark wintry days…when the sun sets way too late as does the morning sunrise. It’s ok.
Alright, taking my own advice…deep breaths…shoe rack discombobulated…ready set organize. -Stay warm!
Ok, it’s confession time. You know, that moment when you spill the proverbial beans, you spill your guts, the whole truth shall set you free…so here goes…
It happened yesterday. It was just another normal day of getting my two oldest boys off to school, and getting there on time. For me being on time is important, it’s a pet peeve of mine to be late for anything…yet somehow the rest of my family seems to think we can show up whenever we get there, which is not cool for school!
After about five minutes of looking for one of my son’s shoes, which must have been a part of Harry Houdini’s magic act, because I have found his shoes in the oddest places including outside and behind the toilet (I am not kidding). Finally we get into the minivan, I’m a little flustered, we’re a few minutes late now and the van is stone cold because we spent so much time looking for shoes that I neglected to start the van early enough to get it warmed up. I guess you could say it was my time to chill…literally. We get our seat belts buckled, and off we go to school. I take a few deep breaths to exhale the stress from my lungs and turn on the radio. It’s still set to my mp3 player, and so praise music begins to play in the van. I am finally finding my groove with now tepid coffee in hand, and soothing worship music playing in the background. At this point I am starting to feel the music, and I begin to sing along…oh don’t judge me, I bet you sing in the van too.
As I’m singing along to a song called “Love came down” I glance in my rearview mirror and notice a car is aggressively riding my rear bumper. I’m doing the speed limit…I’m not a slow driver. I’m still trying to sing this great worship song but I’m being distracted by the driver in the car behind me. It’s starting to stress me out again. Finally we come to one of those round-abouts that the city recently put in, and I expect him to slow down…instead he speeds up, and swerves into the next lane, then he darts ahead of me and proceeds to cut me off as he turns into my lane ahead of me… “Love came down” is still playing in the background…although I’m not feeling like I want to place any love down on this guy who I feel has just wronged me. In fact, I feel like speeding up, honking my horn, and if possible pass him up just like he did to me.
“Love came down to rescue me, love came down to set me free…”
Then these words hit me in the face, as I’m flustered, angry, and I’ve yelled at the guy as he cut me off…somehow I don’t feel so “set free” at the moment…I’m bound by this anger inside of me at this act that I understand to be injustice and inconsideration by some idiot in a car.
At the same moment that the lyrics of this song that I had just been singing hit me, I look over at my boys. It’s a double slap in the face. What am I teaching my children in this instance? Am I teaching them that you can sing about being set free by the love of God and at the same time curse man because of their ignorance and failure to yield to the rules of the road?
“Love came down to rescue me, love came down and set me free…and I am Yours, I’m forever Yours.” At that moment I didn’t feel like HIS…I felt guilty of being MINE. I felt guilty of being selfish and I was teaching my children how to be angry and selfish too. Was this the kind of legacy I was leaving for my kids? Did I want my boys to be angry at drivers, angry at the world and stressed out over something so temporary and silly? Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” I know this to be absolutely true…because in that moment of road rage, I lost my happiness and I lost a little bit of integrity that I had with my kids in that van.
I was convicted while singing a praise song, and instead of displaying that love that came down for me, I was displaying the wrath of my sinful state…my old self.
Okay, confession time is over. They say it’s good for the soul, but you know what’s better for the soul? Avoiding those trappings that lead us to confession in the first place. It’s much, much harder to do, but in the long run we would all be better off. This is a truth that I’ve learned, road rage and worship music make for very awkward road companions, let alone improper parental examples of godly living.
I guess what I’m trying to say is summed up in Ephesians 4:29; “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” I was singing one tune and letting sin lead me astray back into my old sinful ways…and my kids were in the van. I wasn’t building anyone up in that moment; I was letting my tongue destroy.
We can’t possibly do both at the same time as children of God. We either let love come down and be a part of who we are igniting others with this joy, love and hope; or we let sin in and we treat others through selfish intentions and shameful acts. Perhaps you’ve also been there a time or two…it’s a slap in the face, conviction follows and we need to confess and modify that behavior if we are to truly live as children of God bringing that love and freedom into this world.
Take it from a guy who sang a song of praise while my actions were singing a song of wrath…it’s time to change.
Inside the cabin
Curtains drawn
in windows of white
Reflecting the
Large flakes of snow
falling
Silently
Piling up
in its window frames
Frosting the sill.
While still
Outside on the edge
Of Indian lake
Ice has formed
miles down the road
A bell tolls
calling for its
Lost souls
Somewhere out across
The little bay
Dark and foreboding
A dog barks
Forlorn, seemingly alone…
Snow crunches
Under these cold feet
I Yearn to go
Back inside
As the invitation
Of warmth calls to me
From the tangerine
lighted windows.
This is winter
Placing its
Frosted lips
Giving tepid kisses
On faces and heart
Shivering to the bone.
The after Christmas drive is always an event strewn with crabby motorists, crappy greasy spoons only open because no other place is available and they’re looking to make a quick buck on the naïve and the desperate. Somewhere down the road an eagle soars, free, uninhibited by the holiday traffic…focused instead on a helpless meal grazing in the snow fallen fields below.
Rushing onward on this two lane road at 55 miles an hour, cooped up like caged lab rats who cant get along, while the cage smells of old coffee, fastfood and dirty feet. Some where along the many snow covered miles a singer on the radio sang about being ‘home for the holidays’ and perhaps “home” at this point in the journey is a welcome sign advertising clean bathrooms and fresh coffee, because at the moment this yule tide trek seems to never end. If I hear the phrase “are we almost there” one more time, it will be too soon as we count the endless line of naked trees along the silent snowmobile tracked shoulder of the highway.
Another round of ‘eye spy’? I don’t think so…but as these legs ache to touch carpet not supported by four rotating wheels, we watch endless small villages pass in the rear view mirrors with little hint of life, but for the slight wisps of smoke emanating from chimneys in dimly lit homes along this path. But for a brief moment one could imagine living there, hunkered in for the Christmas holiday. The glow of the television flickers as we pass, a gas station on the corner, with attendants at lonely cash registers stares out and sees us as we pass. This is Christmas…from the road…watching it come and go like the train on the tracks…on and on.
Have a safe trip where ever you may find yourself today.
2 Timothy 1:11-12 (MSG) “This is the Message I’ve been set apart to proclaim as preacher, emissary, and teacher. It’s also the cause of all this trouble I’m in. But I have no regrets. I couldn’t be more sure of my ground—the One I’ve trusted in can take care of what he’s trusted me to do right to the end.”
I find it fascinating and invigorating to think of the Apostle Paul living out his convictions even in the midst of certain and eventual death. Paul wasn’t a waffler, he wasn’t some guy who couldn’t make up his mind, in fact faith and conviction led him to proclaim the message of Christ and His kingdom even when it would cost him his life. That’s conviction.
A few years ago the “No Fear” labels appeared and were very popular in our culture. Why? Because it evoked this brazened mentality that no matter what took place in life, the one wearing the “no fear” label would approach life’s problems without fear. That too is conviction that doesn’t waffle or change. I’m reminded of Tom Petty’s song “I won’t back down” where it states this; “I won’t back down, no I won’t back down, you can stand me up at the gates of hell but I won’t back down.”
Living a life without regret isn’t easy, in fact it is the hardest thing to accomplish. The tides of life sometimes cause us to doubt, circumstances beyond our control sometimes challenges us to quit, and living without regret, at times, seems impossible. But I want to encourage you that living a life without regret is possible. Paul did it, and so can you. But here’s how we are even able to think about living this regret free life: Zechariah 4:6 says;
…” ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.” Now this verse comes from a different time, and different circumstances sure, but what it says to me and I hope what it says to you is that God and His power can overcome anything in this world!
Our convictions and hope should be rooted in the one who created everything around us! Jesus even said in John 15:5;“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Did you catch that? Apart from Him, we’re a lost cause. Living a life without regrets, begins with where our convictions are rooted in. If they are rooted in our own self confidence, something or someone will eventually come along and uprooted them and we will be greatly disappointed. If our convictions are rooted in other people, chances are those other people will eventually let us down or our expectations will not always be met. If our convictions are rooted in anything but the relationship and love that God has for us first and foremost then we will eventually experience regret in this life. Living a life without regret, like Paul lived begins in our convictions.
What are your convictions today? Are you living a life without regret?
If not, perhaps re-evaluate where and in whom you place your trust and convictions. We too, like Paul can bold state: “But I have no regrets. I couldn’t be more sure of my ground—the One I’ve trusted in can take care of what he’s trusted me to do right to the end.”
13 At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God’s praises: 14 Glory to God in the heavenly heights, Peace to all men and women on earth who please him. 15 As the angel choir withdrew into heaven, the sheepherders talked it over. “Let’s get over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us.” 16 They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. 17 Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. 18 All who heard the sheepherders were impressed. (Luke 2:13-18 MSG)
A proclamation by a stunning Angel of light would have been extremely amazing to see in and of itself. If we had been in that field on that night would our reaction been any different from that of the Shepherds? Probably not. There aren’t too many people in our day and age that have witnessed such a sight as these humble shepherds saw in pasture that night. It’s almost a scene right out of some paranormal show, right up until the angel actually speaks you could almost envision an alien stepping out of the light with tendrils extended and the spooky sci-fi music is cued to end scene. What happens next, by all intents and purposes shouldn’t have occurred. The first people to hear of Messiah’s birth are lowly shepherds. It wasn’t the mayor of Bethlehem awakened to an angelic announcement, or a foreign dignitary, the message was directed at common shepherds doing the work that others would not be caught dead doing. For many, being a shepherd was beneath their stature in the community…yet apparently these shepherds were so important to the nativity story that God’s messengers make this startling revelation to them. Herod wasn’t alerted, and of course we’re thankful for that. The officials in Rome were not on the announcement list either. Shepherds, with staffs and slings, sitting around a fire at night get this mighty earth changing announcement. Think about that for a moment, then think about who you are. If you’re someone important then you have some grain of confidence already, but for the rest of us who, in a very real sense, are nobodies in this world…you and I matter to God and his purposes here on this earth. We don’t have to have Bill Gates’ money, or Kim Kardashian looks, or the mind and intellect of Stephen Hawking to be important to God, all we have to be is available to God.
The shepherds had nowhere important to go that night; their responsibility was to care for the sheep in that field. There wasn’t a party for them to attend, or a famous symposium to speak at; they were just there protecting weakest, simple minded animal known on earth. I still find it astounding that after all this time, after prophesies had foretold Messiah’s coming, this late breaking news reaches the common working man first. It’s comforting to think, that though status on this earth is important, wealth on this earth is revered, God doesn’t care about such earthly titles and status symbols. What God does care about is the heart. It’s a humbling thought. James 4:10 says “Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up.” Shepherds in a humble, lowly state embody this verse for me today. Not only did they get a single angelic messenger, they actually experienced the first and best Christmas choral arrangement never written on this earth…a master piece of music written in heaven. That additional fact boggles my mind. I’ve heard some amazing choirs, listened to some of the world’s best voices, but nothing would compare to the vocal concert the shepherds must have heard that night. For me it’s has to rank up there like an extended guitar solo at an encore performance of stairway to heaven by Led Zeppelin. The shepherds had front row seats to the best concert available at any time on earth. That blows me away! What these lowly sheep herders did next is not only extra ordinary but it reflects their angelic visit. They leave their sheep in search of this foretold child in a manger. Following their visit, still high on angelic fumes, they declare the world changing news to everyone they meet, and once told, everyone who hears is impressed at the news.
This amazing news is still relevant after all these years, and it doesn’t take the most eloquent speaker to declare it either! God wants you to declare His majesty this Christmas! God wants our humble hearts and lives to celebrate his birth once again. We may not have ever experienced that front row concert of angels, but we can’t but help to be propelled to the manger bed once again. 15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” Luke 2:15 (NIV)
Pastor's Ponderings 