Inspirations

It's 2016.  The New Year is a few days old.  For many, including me, the new year is a time of reflection and  evaluation.  We look at the year and revisit the resolutions that we made last year in order to see how we did, all in the hope of doing better this year than we were last year.   Then, we make more resolutions this year. For most of us, they went something like this: I want to get healthy. I want to do better with my finances. I want to lose 20, 30, or 50 pounds this year.   or perhaps I want to be a better person There is nothing wrong with these goals,  Sometimes they can be good.  However, I have a feeling that often these goals are selfish.  We end up focusing on what we can do; what we can get. This year, I want to suggest a different approach.  I want to suggest we focus on resolutions that will make us a better Christians; that will bring us closer to God. ...

It's Christmas!  Everyone is eagerly anticipating the gifts they will open.   There is so much activity. Even though no one HAS to be up, everyone is up early.  Today, I received many gifts that I will treasure and many that I wanted.  It was a wonderful, relaxing Christmas. The weather was unseasonably warm, so we even started a new tradition of taking a Christmas walk.  For me, this Christmas was magical.   However, I can not imagine the magic of that first Christmas; The day when Mary gave birth to God.  Because, in that moment, God, the God of the universe, set aside all the splendor of heaven and took on flesh and blood.  He set aside the perfection of Heaven to live in an imperfect world.  He lived in their neighborhood, went to their Jewish school, worked where they worked.  God was is with us.  For because of that one day.   God will always be with us because he lives in the hearts of those who choose...

Responses, we all have them.   It's how we act, or react, in a given situation.  In the Christmas story, There are many different reactions.  Mary and Joseph humbly accepted the news of the baby  Jesus without questions.  The story says that Mary was troubled- I think terrified would be an appropriate word- yet they submit to God's plan for them.  Mary "treasured all these things that happened in her heart."  She, as a parent, never forgot that day, but she thought about them.  I imagine, she wanted to understand; to see the big picture.   Herod heard the news of the birth of a king and was "greatly troubled."  His reaction was to kill all the boys in the vicinity that were under three years old.  He was upset, and he made everyone else upset as well.  He was not going to let someone else be king.  And what of the innkeepers, who had no place for the baby and turned them away; leaving Mary and Joseph to have thei...

The Christmas season this year seems to be more reflective than other years.   Quieter.  We have made a ton of cookies;  We have done a few shopping trips to bigger cities.  The tree is up and decorated.  But unlike other years, There has been no chaotic hustle and bustle that usually comes with the holiday season.   Yesterday, I gathered my tape, rounded up a pair of scissors (I can never find them when I want them),  gathered the wrapping paper and set out to wrap the gifts that I had bought.  As my daughter and I sat in the middle of the bedroom floor and started wrapping gifts, I ran into a problem, there was not enough wrapping paper.  Not wanting to waste wrapping paper, I decided to use a piece from another roll to cover the rest of the present.  My daughter looked at it and said,  "Aww now it's not pretty."  It wasn't.  She started wrapping another present, and would you believe it?  She had the same problem. ...

It's Christmas!  Everything is at a fevered pitch.  People blow like the wind through, store after store, searching for that perfect gift for that special person on their list.  Lines are long, tempers are short, and the time left till Christmas is even shorter.   We have spent hours scouring the countryside in search for the perfect tree, or we have dragged the tree out of the closet.  We have decorated the house in anticipation of the long-awaited day.  We have planned parties and went caroling all in hopes of capturing the Christmas spirit.   For some, they listen to the weather forecast in hoping that there will be snow in abundance.  We hope that, somehow, the snow the parties, the lights and tinsel, the cards or the brightly adorned tree will bring some holiday cheer to our lonely hearts.  There is one thing that most of us loose sight of around this time of year.  Christmas is not about how many gifts you give or get; nor...

The Christmas season is now squeezing in on all of us and as we go, from store to store, in search of that perfect gift for dad, or the last minute gift for "Aunt Harriet" because you had no idea she remembered you this year; it is easy to get irritated.   The cashier took a few minutes longer to get the person in front of us checked out and now we are late, or perhaps we are running late and remember that we still need a gift for the party that we forgot.  So we swing by the local stuffmart grab a gift, head to checkout only to discover that every checkout is littered with people.  Or maybe, you have to make a trip back to a store to fix a problem that the store created in the first place.  Suddenly, what should have been easy, becomes complicated like the first Christmas.  We have two choices.  We can let these minor things steal our joy of Christmas or "going with it" and refusing to let the little things crush our spirit. ...

I've been thinking about that first Christmas that occurred so very long ago.   I can't help but smile when I think about how, from a human perspective, The first Christmas seemed to capture life entirely, messy.  Mary had "plans", thoughts, or expectations for what her life would be like.   She would get married, then after a year, or two they would have children.  Joseph, no doubt, also had dreams and expectations for his life.  He would marry a "nice" Jewish girl and perhaps, once they had saved some money they would have a house and children.   They were a good Jewish couple.  Then ... God stepped in and suddenly life was very complicated.  Sometimes when we are following God, life gets harder.  Just like it did for Mary and Joseph.   Mary found herself pregnant in a society in which the penalty for this type of "sin" was death, and the only explanation she could give was one that no one would believe. I imagine that Mary mu...