Month: December 2019

Digging in Deeper: Luke 2:19

Leave a comment

**No post tomorrow. We’ll get back to our regular schedule on Thursday. Happy New Year!

“But Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

How busy are you? Okay, how busy are you, really? If your family or simply your life is at all like mine, you have a tendency to schedule yourself to the point that you simply run from thing to thing to thing and never stop to breathe, much less think about any of them. While that’s an easy pattern to fall into, it isn’t one that will lead to flourishing in the long term. As we sit here in the limbo that is the days between Christmas and the New Year, let’s see if we can’t take a page out of Mary’s playbook and take it all in for a minute.

Read the rest…

Keep Seeking

2 Comments

Christmas is done. We’ve made it. But what now? The days leading up to Christmas, while often busy, are also joy-filled in a way many other times of the year aren’t. But once we get to the other side of Christmas, how do we keep from running smack into the emotional letdown we so often feel? This week and next as we get started on a brand new year, a brand new decade, we’re going to talk about how to do just that in a short run series called, After Christmas. Thanks for reading.

Keep Seeking

So here we are on the other side of the big day. Did anybody wake up Thursday morning and think, “Now what?” I mean, Wednesday we were all like, “Ho, ho, ho!” But Thursday? It was perhaps more like, “Oh, oh, oh…” There’s just something about the day after a big holiday like Christmas that feels like a bit of a letdown, isn’t there?

Read the rest…

Morning Musing: 1 Corinthians 1:28

Leave a comment

**This will be my last post this week. I hope you and your family have a very, Merry Christmas. May you know the full blessings that only the birth of our Savior can bring. See you Monday!

“God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world — what is viewed as nothing — to bring to nothing what is viewed as something,”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

We are wowed by power and prestige. We give deference to wealth. We assume that rich people are smarter and better informed about…well…everything than poor people. We expect more from people we deem powerful than those we don’t. We look to befriend people we think will give us some sort of social or vocational advantage. We do this because we make judgments based on what we can see. This works if some sort of worldly success is our goal. When it comes to the kingdom of God, though, all of this gets turned on its head.

Read the rest…

A Savior for Nobodies

Leave a comment

This week we are taking a look at the Christmas story through the eyes of yet one more person who got to witness it firsthand. When Jesus was born, the news was shouted from the highest heights, but it was shouted to the least likely people to receive the message. Out of this, God revealed something important to us. Keep reading to find out what that is and what it means for our lives today.

A Savior for Nobodies

Another cold night. Just like the last one. And the one before that. And the one before that. I can’t even remember the last time I was warm. I mean, the sun is nice during the day, but man do the nights get cold at this time of year. I know what you’re thinking: Who would be outside at night when the temperature is like this? Me, that’s who! Me, the guy who does the work nobody else wants to do. Me, the guy who always gets overlooked. Me, the guy nobody ever seems to want around. I’ve got to tell you, the lot of a shepherd is rough.

Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Ephesians 3:20

Leave a comment

“Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever had in mind exactly what you wanted to happen and then things did not go that way? I suspect so. I suspect so not because I know you, but because that’s common. That’s the root of all disappointment, and in a world broken by sin, disappointment is par for the course. But, when things didn’t go the way you wanted them to go, did they ever turn out better than you imagined? If you are a follower of Jesus, you serve the God who specializes in doing just that.

Read the rest…