Monthly Archives: December 2018

Stay Here

stay hereAs the year draws to a close, many people consider what new adventures they would like to embark on in the new year and ponder major changes in their lives. While this may be good and something that is beneficial in some circumstances, oftentimes the best plan is to stay put with where you are.

When Jesus was about to ascend into heaven to be with his heavenly Father, he said to his disciples: “I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here … until you have been clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49).

Jesus wanted the disciples to stay where they were until the Holy Spirit came and moved them to venture out into new locales. And the disciples listened: “They were continually in the temple blessing God” (Luke 24:53). They waited patiently to be guided by the Holy Spirit on what to do next.

Sometimes the best and most beneficial thing for us to do in life is to stay here. Be at peace with where God has placed you in life and not pine for some other location that sounds more appealing to us, yet may not be.

The Holy Spirit will tell you when it is time to move. In the meantime, spend time in worship where you are, pray to him, serve those around you right now in the name of the Lord Jesus, who called us to this place and time to be his hands and feet.

So my advice to you for the new year is to stay put and be content with where you are in life. Who knows what God has in store for you right where you are?

Christmas Ornaments

ornamentsMerry Christmas to one and all! It is my joy to share the joy of this day with you, and I wish you special moments with friends and family and a deepening connection with the Christ Child today.

One thing I have liked to do is to buy Christmas ornaments from places that I visit each year. This past year, on my vacation to Wisconsin I found a metal ornament in the shape of the state with a cutout of a hiker in the middle. It perfectly encapsulated my experience of hiking various parts of the state and rejoicing in God’s creation. I enjoyed putting that ornament on my Christmas tree this year.

wisconsinWhat experience do you want to remember fondly from the past year as you celebrate Christmas today? The fact is that Christ comes to us in various ways not just at Christmas, but throughout the year. What “Christmas ornament” moment do you want to treasure today and give thanks to God for?

Today is a day to remember how the birth of Jesus Christ to save us from sin and death forever decorates our lives year after year. The beauty of his birth is something that is precious to us and something that needs to be celebrated often. Let this Christmas be the beginning of many more Christmas moments throughout the coming year, moments when we see the love of our Savior ornamenting our world.

Moon Rocks

Moon rocksI read an article recently that after Neal Armstrong brought back moon rocks from the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, they were distributed to all 50 states, but many of the mementos vanished. Saddened by this development, intrepid rock hunter Joseph Gutheinz made it his mission to find the missing treasures. He has successfully located all the states’ rocks, except for 2, New York and Delaware, and he hopes to find those by the 50th anniversary of the moon landing in 2019.

While some of the rocks were stolen, amazingly, Gutheinz discovered that an estimated 40 states did not record where they put the moon rocks, and they simply lost track of them.rock plaque

How could this happen, we ask ourselves. But the truth is that something similar can happen with the treasure of our faith in Christ that we have been given by the power of the Holy Spirit through our baptisms.

Our precious faith can sometimes get ignored under that piles of work assignments, school activities and personal hobbies. For instance, if you can’t think of where to find a Bible in your home, then perhaps it is time to put the Bible front and center in your living space to remind your entire household that our faith is precious and needs to be honored and recognized.

The same goes for those who have wondered away from the faith or whom we have simply lost touch with. If you haven’t talked to a special friend in the faith for awhile, it is probably time to set aside some time to search for them and reconnect with this treasured person in your life.

I am reminded of the parable of the woman searching for the lost coin. Like Getheinz with the moon rocks, she is determined to keep looking for the coin until she finds it, and then she is overjoyed when she does.

Our attitude should be the same in our re-embracing of our faith and our fellow followers of Christ. Never let the Word of God or the bonds we have with others disappear from our lives!

Strength of My Life

strengthThe LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? —Psalm 27:1 (KJV)

My confirmation verse was Psalm 27:1. I chose it because I liked the words about the Lord being “my light and my salvation.” But recently a friend of mine showed me a plaque he received as a farewell gift when he left one congregation to serve as a musician in another. “The Lord is the strength of my life,” it read. And my friend has faithfully put it by the door in homes he has lived in ever since.

What a nice reminder as we leave our homes that the Lord is the strength of our lives. We cannot do it with our own strength, but we can do it with his. He is the core, the center, the driving force that carries us forward in our lives.

Much like in our bodies, when we exercise, we are supposed to “work the core,” the center of our bodies around the torso, because when the core is strong, the rest of our body becomes stronger. That is a great picture of how the strength of the Lord makes our entire selves, both soul and body, strong because he is strong.

Think about the strength God gives this week. Draw upon that core strength, and say with the psalmist, “Of whom shall I be afraid?”

 

The Great Sustainer

sustainerSurely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me. —Psalm 54:4

Psalm 54:4 is good for anyone going through trying times. It gives hope when we feel helpless. I like the use of the word surely here. There is a confidence and a certainty about it. God WILL BE my help. There is no doubt about it.

I also like the fact that this verse does not stop with the help. It assures us of the Lord sustaining us. There is help for the long haul, not just for now. There is a future plan that God has in place to keep us going in our faith and in our life with him. There is no end to the care that our Lord provides for us. Even unto eternity, he sustains us by taking us to heaven with him when we die.

His help and sustaining are ever-present and ever-giving. We are never in this life alone with our Great Sustainer beside us.

Sinking Down

air mattressI recently slept on an air mattress on a trip with some friends. Unfortunately there was a leak somewhere in the mattress, and by the time I woke up the next morning, I had sunken down into the middle with the two sides of the mattress enfolding me like a taco, which brought peals of laughter from my friends when they saw me “sunken down.”

The experience called to mind for me these words of the hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”:

When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down
Beneath God’s righteous frown,
Christ laid aside his crown for my soul for my soul,
Christ laid aside his crown for my soul.

When I was literally “sunken down” on the air mattress, it was hard for me to get out. It is impossible when I am sunken down in sin. Only Christ can lift me out.

Another thing I noticed when I was “down low” was that there was still a little bit of air left in the mattress so that I was not sleeping directly on the floor. When I think I have reached rock bottom in my life, I must always remember that the the wind, the air, the breath of the Holy Spirit still lifts me up and sustains me in the faith and keeps me from the very bottom of despair.

And when I was low in the mattress, the sides of air were, I realized, like a warm hug wrapping their arms around me, like a loving Father, who only hates the sin, saying to me, “Don’t worry. I’ve got you. You will not be sucked away by sin.”

The next night I slept on a full-pumped air mattress with no leaks, and all was right with the world.

An Anchor

anchorWe have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. —Hebrews 6:19

Recently I went boating with some friends on a nearby lake. At one point our boat driver took us to a secluded clove, where he heaved a very heavy anchor over the bow until it hit bottom many feet below. This would keep the boat steady while we swam and floated on noodles and rafts behind the boat.

What struck me was that even though the boat was anchored, it still did a lot of moving around because of the prevailing winds, the waves from other boats and currents from the lake. There were times when I had to swim quite a ways to stay close to the back of the boat to stay safe. I had always imagined that once a boat was anchored, it stayed put. That is not the case, I discovered.

Which made me think about this verse from Hebrews about our hope in Christ being an anchor for the soul. Though the anchor is firm and secure, we who are tethered to it are not always still. We are pushed around by doubts, fears, the advice and messages of others who say that God does not matter or that Christianity has become passé. It is not always easy up here on the surface. The waters of life can be rough.

But we who have our hope and faith in Christ have the confidence that though we may be tossed about for a little while, our God will never let us go too far adrift. He keeps us firmly planted in the depths of his love and care and compassion for us to keep us on course in our faith. He will always keep us safe in his forgiveness and grace. That is our hope. That is our anchor. That is our salvation.