O Come, O Come Emmanuel

I think "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" is one of the most beautiful Christmas songs, followed closely by "O Holy Night".

Today, we start our Christmas celebration. We'll open our presents as a family, and tomorrow, we will celebrate with extended family. We give gifts in honor of the father heart of God, who loved us so much that He extravagantly gave us His only son, so that we may have abundant life today & eternal life forever.

A thrill of hope
The weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks
A new and glorious morn

The King of kings lay
Thus in lowly manger,
In all our trials
Born to be our friend!

As the hymn says, it's truly a time to rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel has come.

Does anyone else find this hilariously funny/ironic?

It's not terribly clear, because my scanner is not working, so I had to do a screen shot.

This was in the ad of my local supermarket:



In all fairness, this is the full image:

But still! Could we have not put the pork directly below Happy Hannukah?

Beloved Unlovely

New Boundless article, by yours truly:

Beloved Unlovely

You should read it. It's good.

There was a man standing in front of me. He was visibly intoxicated, and he reeked of mouth wash (I later found out sometimes alcoholics drink a certain brand of mouth wash when they can't get hold of alcohol). He was dirty, smelly and scary.

I was speechless.

And then he spoke. "I was headed in the other direction down the path when God told me to come over here and talk to you."

I didn't know whether I should be praising God for this confirmation or running for the hills.

The Giving Heart of the Father

A devotional I wrote was published today on Park Street's website.

It's called "The Giving Heart of the Father".

Here's an excerpt:

In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus admonishes us to give to those who ask us for something. He goes on to say later “when you give to the needy.” He doesn’t say, “If you give” or “When you have extra”; He says “when you give”, as if it were understood that giving is a vital part of following Him.

Now go read it :)

Opportunities for Joy

Another article of mine was published in Boundless :)

Opportunities for Joy

Great Article over at Boundless Yesterday

My good friend Randy Thomas wrote a challenging article over at Boundless yesterday.

Chased, Caught

Be sure to read it :)

2 Timothy 2:13

"If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself." 2 Timothy 2:13

This is one of the coolest verses in the Bible. In order for God NOT to be faithful in our lives, He would have to deny Himself or disown (as some translations say) Himself.

This verse has been very encouraging to me as I've watched a friend grapple with some real questions about the character of God. It can be challenging to not just jump in & try to fix it because I've been where she is & I know how painful & difficult those feelings are. But I can't fix it; only God can. God has reminded me that His faithfulness does not depend on us; He is faithful because that's the core of His character.

I recently heard Sy Rogers talk about God's character. He gave an analogy that God is sort of like the ocean. We can't know everything that's in the ocean, what every part of it looks like, or what types of animals are in different parts of the ocean. What we do know is that through & through, the ocean is salty. If the ocean is not salty, then it's not ocean; it's just regular water.

I may not understand all God is doing or all He chooses to allow, but I know that through & through, He is faithful and good and loving. That I know for sure.