Christmas Focus

It is a little hard to wrap my mind around the fact that it is already Christmas. That after tomorrow, the holiday will be over and a new year will be beginning.  It just doesn't feel like it's Christmas.

Every year seems to go by faster than the last,  and this year especially, the holidays took me completely by surprise. So Christmas feels weird.

Everyone always talks about needing to make the most of Christmas. Concentrate on the true reason for the season. For Christians, that means we want to focus on the birth of Christ, and for non Christians it probably means focusing on family and giving. But most of us want to make Christmas meaningful and not waste the holiday. We tend to find a focus to avoid wasting the time.

What about our everyday moments? If keeping focus helps us make the most of Christmas,  won't focusing on what's important help us make the most of each day?

I daily get caught up in pointless efforts. I worry about nothing, I don't finish the things I want to finish, and I waste time. I never remember what I really need to do, because I forget the reason for what I’m doing. Focus is what I'm struggling with most this year.

So this Christmas, I'm making a resolution early.  This Christmas, and every day after that, I'm going to focus on my faith. I believe that God gives the reason for my life, that He gives purpose and meaning to it. It only seems right that I focus on Him.  

What will you focus on?

Proverbs 3:5-6 “5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” 

Words be Few

So often we come to the Bible thinking we know all we need to know. 

We think that we have the answer. So instead of checking the accuracy of our answer, we just go find verses that can say what we expect them to say.

With every good intention, we take a verse completely out of context, simply because we are looking for it the wrong way. We come to the Bible, not searching for true answers, but searching for our answers. (Or sometimes the answers we have been fed and not thought to validate.)

Tonight my friend came to me with a question, a question that I thought I knew the answer to. I thought I was about to reveal to him some great piece of wisdom.

And while yeah, my answer was pretty well true, it wasn’t the whole answer. It wasn’t even the main part.

The verse I went to use to validate my point didn’t even entirely mean what I thought it meant. I rushed into my answer, and ended up taking a verse out of context. I messed up.

Luckily for me, my friend caught me on it, called me out. Pointed me exactly to the verse I needed to read tonight.

Isn’t that the way it always seems to work? The people we think that we are going to help, end up helping us instead. We try to teach and end up being taught ourselves.

Tonight, I was taught something simple, but so important. Don’t try to answer by your own wisdom, and don’t keep answering when you are wrong. The scary thing about words are, they can be wrong far more easily than they can be right. Therefore, don't be so quick to use them.

“Be not rash with thy mouth, and let your heart not be hasty to utter anything before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore, let thy words be few.” -Ecclesiastes 5:2

Love Never Fails

Recently I was asked, “Should we stop loving others if they stop loving us? Love is never supposed to fail, to give up, but does love give up if someone wants you to stop loving them?"

 I think the answer is found in 1 Corinthians 13.

  “Though I speak with tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. 

 Love is patient, and is kind; love envies not; love vaunteth itself not and is not puffed up, Does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil; rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 

 Love never fails; but where there be prophecies, they shall fail; where there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.” 

 Before ever giving the definition, Paul makes the point that everything we do is meaningless without love.  But couldn't you then say love gives meaning? It is never pointless to show love; it is never useless.

 Even when the other person is done, even when they reject you, love still endures. 

 Let me give you another example.

 Jesus told us to love our enemies, to love those who hate us. If we are supposed to pray and care for the people who hate us, then why should we stop loving those who have given up on us? The people who reject our love are no less in need of it than the people who accept it. 

 It isn’t wrong to keep loving people who don’t want us anymore. And as painful as it is to continue caring about people who push us away, we have to remember that it is never pointless. 

 God still loves the whole world, which rejects Him time and time again. To love like Christ means that sometimes, we are going to face that same rejection.  God knows exactly how it hurts. 

 We can believe Him when He says that love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, and endureth all things. He more than anyone else understands how love never fails.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was this past week and I started my day by making a list of all the things I was thankful for.

As I was writing, I realized that this year, I have been blessed. I’ve received so much more than I ever expected to recieve; found more than I ever expected to find; loved more than I expected to love.

I’ve had a pretty incredible year, and for the past couple of months, I’ve been waking up every morning and thanking God for something.

Some days it was the wonderful weather or the beautiful view around me. Some days it was the great opportunities I have been given this semester. Most days it was the incredible people that I’ve met and the strong friendships I’ve made with them.

Reflecting back on my semester and all that I was thankful for, I realized a trend.

The more time I spent thanking God for all I have in my life, the less time I spent asking Him for what I didn't have. The more that I was thankful for, the less I wanted.

I was reminded that the best way to be content in life, the best way to have joy, was to take the time to notice what I have. By counting blessings, I’m able to see God’s hand of provision at work in my life, and the more I count my blessings, the more I find to be thankful for.

It might sound cliche but take time to count your blessings. You may find that God has given you more than you realized.

A Little Bit About Me

Life is strange. Life is hard.

Life works in the oddest ways possible.

Life is good.

My life, my story, isn’t a normal one. I’m a pastor’s daughter. My parents are incredible, loving, wonderful people who run a ministry. My family is close knit, and serving God is a family affair for us.

This wasn’t always the case.

My dad might be a pastor but I didn’t grow up in church, not at the start. Oh sure, we went on the occasional Sunday. We did VBS and all that stuff here and there. But back then, my dad wasn’t a pastor. Back then, my parents weren’t Christians.

When I was about nine, my parents were having problems.

We moved to Ohio because my dad got a promotion, and then my siblings and I ended up going to Wyoming to spend the summer with my grandmother. At the end of the summer, we were surprised and delighted to be brought back home, not to Ohio, but to our old house in South Carolina.

Then we discovered the reason. Mom and Dad were getting divorced.

It was a painful thing, having Dad living in Ohio. Not getting to see him all of the time.

But that divorce saved my family.

My mom was invited to church by some friends of hers, and she was surrounded with love and prayer. She kept going and started bringing my siblings and I. Not long after, my mom, my sister, and I all came to know Christ.

Soon we were in church all of the time. When my dad came to see us on weekends, he ended up having to come to church to spend time with his kids.

He was surprised to find the church filled with people he knew, such as his financial guy, a few guys from his karate school.

And while he didn’t know it, there were people in that church praying for him that didn’t even know him.

After several other events in his life, my dad came to know Christ as well.

He moved back to South Carolina. He came to church with us.

My parents got remarried, this time with God at the center of their marriage.

And two years after he was saved, my dad became a youth pastor. (Another incredible story, but one for another time.)

The point is, if my parents hadn’t had marital trouble, if things hadn’t ended in divorce, my family would have been content with just being occasional church goers.

We never would have learned who God really is. My dad would never have been a pastor. My family wouldn’t have gotten to do ministry together.

It took breaking my family to make my family whole.

As the nine year old girl, sitting on the couch, crying, watching my parents cry, I never could have told you that it was the best thing that could happen to us.

Now looking back, I can’t see it any other way.

God doesn’t always work the way you expect, but He works in the way we need.

He makes life good.