Christmas Spirit

Christmas comes just once a year, my favorite time of the year, and every year my family has a tradition. On Thanksgiving night after all the hubbub of stuffing ourselves to bursting we come home and set up our Christmas tree together. We look at all the ornaments and remember why it's special. And of course, we put the star on top of the tree. Silver, shining, the first thing someone looks at when they see a Christmas tree.

While setting up the tree this year I was feeling rather down. Just another year. Nothing new. Whatever. You know the feeling. And as we were sitting around the Christmas tree admiring our work there was one ornament in particular that stuck out to me. It was a square nail, about four inches long, with a red bow tied at the top.

I remember, when I was younger, asking my dad why we hung a nail on our Christmas tree. He took the opportunity to remind me of the story of Christ's death and resurrection. Yes, yes, I knew the story well, but I still didn't understand why we had an ornament that celebrated an end when Christmas was to celebrate a beginning.

As I scrutinized the ornament this year, I realized this: Christmas does signify a beginning, a birth. But it also is the end; Christmas is the end to ordinary. Jesus came to save the world. He saved us all. He saved you.

We get so caught up in the presents and the tinsel that we forget what we're creating all the stress of this holiday for. We lose focus on who's birthday we're celebrating.

This Christmas don't celebrate for you. Celebrate for Him and what He has done and what He is doing in our world today.

The Pretenders

I was on facebook the other day (of course!) and saw that one of my friends wrote a status about how she hates it when people who claim to be Christians do unChristian things like cursing, taking the Lord's name in vain, stealing, lying, cheating, etc. You get my point. And at first I was like, "Yeah, you go girl! Call 'em out on it!" But then I thought about it for a little while (stupid brain!) and realized that doing drugs and smoking weed behind the school aren't the only sins that makes you "unChristian."

Believing in Jesus isn't the only trait that "proves" you are a Christian. Any common sinner can do that. Even demons believe in Jesus (James 2:19). Just because you've been to church once or twice, that doesn't make you a worshipper. As G.K. Chesterton put it, "Just going to church doesn't make you a Christian anymore than standing in your garage makes you a car."

I'm going to take it one step further: guess what? there is no perfect Christian!

But does that make us all pretenders of the faith? If no one is perfect, if we don't follow the Ten Commandments or obey God's will without question, does that make us "unChristian" also? We go through life pretending to understand the Bible and pretending to be good, but is that enough?

There are a lot of people out there that think just because they are mostly good people that they will go to heaven. This is simply not true. You can't be wholly good enough to see the face of God without accepting Jesus' shed blood to cleanse your sins. Now, you might say that you don't have any sins. But have you ever lied? Or stolen? Or cheated?

The Ten Commandments say do not steal or lie or cheat or take the Lord's name in vain. Doing these things is just as bad as murdering in God's eyes. So are you a good person. I'd say no. There isn't a single one of us good enough to go to heaven.

So we have established that there aren't any "good" people in the world. We all sin, we are all sinners, we are all doomed to go to hell.

Unless . . .

What if this God that supposedly loves us so much made a way for us to be good enough, with a little help, of course? What if this God, that loves us so much, sent His Son, His only Child, to die for us? What if His perfect, flawless, Son was sent to die for cruel, unmoral, judging, murdering, comfort zone seeking humans?

What if there is no what if?

John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that whomever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him."

And we don't have to be pretenders anymore.

Jesus -- the "Nice Guy"

I was listening to the radio the other day (yes, I'm addicted to Air1) and Brant was talking about Jesus. You're probably thinking, "Well duhh! It's a Christian radio station. Who else would they be talking about?" and you're right. Christian radio stations tend to talk about Jesus a lot. I'm rambling. To get back to the point: Brant was saying how Jesus couldn't be described as a nice guy. That's about all I heard before I had to go to work, but it got me thinking.

Of course Jesus was a "nice guy." He was the nicest guy in the world. Right?

And then I decided to look up the word "nice" in the dictionary. Did you know to be nice means to be agreeable?

Let me see . . . Agreeable Jesus. No, no, I don't think that quite fits.

You see, Jesus wasn't born to be agreeable. He wasn't born to follow; he was born to lead and to save. A savior can't be agreeable. You don't want someone who is trying to save you to be agreeable! I think that would go something like this:

Agreeable Savior: Hey! I'm going to save you, okay?
You: What? Save me from what? I'm not in trouble. Nope. Perfectly fine.
Agreeable Savior: Ohh, okay. Sorry. My mistake. You're right. The knife you're about to stab through your heart won't cause any pain. I'll just let you be.

Agreeable savior? I think not! (Kind of extreme conversation but you get my point.)

So we have established that Jesus isn't a nice guy. Then who is he?

Jesus came to save the world. He came to save your soul. He was a pretty radical guy! I mean, he walked into the temple and started overturning tables (Matthew 21:12). I bet that gave the religious leaders a little heart attack.

Speaking of radical, I looked up that word too, just to make sure I had the right definition. It means thoroughgoing or extreme in regard to change from respected and traditional forms of, in this case, religion. Radical also means forming a basis or tradition. I'd say that Jesus formed the basis for Christianity, don't you think?

So Jesus was radical. Was he compassionate (which means a feeling of great sorrow or sympathy for another who is stricken with misfortune and a desire to relieve the suffering)?

In Luke 7:11-17, Jesus enters a town called Nain. As he is entering the city gates he passes a funeral procession, a young man, the only son of a widow, was being carried out to be buried. Verse 13-15: When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, "Don't cry." Then he went up and touched the bier they were carrying him on, and the bearers stood still. He said, "Young man, I say to you, get up!" The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.

After this happened the funeral-goers were "filled with awe and praised God."

Let us praise God today for sending his radical, compassionate Son, who changed the world and became our Savior.

Daisies

"Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning. "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old. and our Father is younger than we." -G.K. Chesterton

The Last Ten Hours

I woke up on Saturday morning with ten hours left of the thirty hour famine. My first thought: "I'm never going to make it!" I always start my day with breakfast, I don't know how people who don't eat breakfast survive. So I got out of bed, took a shower, and tried not to think about how I had nothing in my stomach; just like the starving children in Africa.

We spent the morning doing service projects. We raked leaves out of three neighborhood yards and behind a school baseball field. I couldn't stop shivering from the hunger and the cold. After working hard all morning we returned to the church and spent the half hour we would be lunch time reading the Bible. 

Before our alone time with God we watched another video about the thirty hour famine. It started out with a girl who had everything but was suffering from a horrible disease - the disease of wanting more. It was pretty hilarious until they showed a child on the other side of the world who was living her life with nothing. No. Less than nothing.

Who could ever want the "American Dream" when there are millions of people around the world who don't even have enough money to have one meal a day. Children are starving and yet we dare to spend money on a new car or that fancy homecoming dress. It's murder. 

Once we were finished "filling our stomachs" with the Word of God we headed back outside and greeted a slightly warmer day. Car wash time! We lined both sides of the streets with signs telling everyone who was passing about the free car wash for starving children in Africa. How can you get your car washed by hungry teenagers who are starving themselves for thirty hours for hungry children around the world and not give money? We didn't get as many customers as we had hoped but we did raise a lot more money than I expected.

By the time we had washed the last car our energy was spent. It was exertion just to walk up the stairs. We huddled in the warmth of the teen room and gathered our stuff before driving out to a friends house to wait for our meal. At last!

The final hour was the hardest without a doubt. We were so close, yet we still had sixty minutes until we could feel the warm food in our bellies. Fifteen minutes left and the food was put out on the table. We all huddled together and put our hands over the steam that rose off the hamburgers and hotdogs. Our mouths watered as we breathed in the smell that our noses had been missing, the smell of good food. We all piled our plates high with sandwiches, chips, potatoes (my favorite!), and fruit. The twenty of us sat down on the ground in a circle and counted the seconds until we had officially not eaten for thirty hours. Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . . six . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . we all had some sort of warm food held up to our mouth . . . one . . . FEAST!

I dislike hamburgers and I hate hotdogs, but I have never tasted anything so good in my entire life. The warmth of it, the smell. Yumm! Anyone who has gone hungry for a day will tell you it was worth it just to taste the goodness of food again.

And then I remembered the starving children in Africa, I remembered Kasia.

The starving don't get to stuff their mouths full of food. They don't get food. They're still starving.

And I'm still starving to help them. 

Thirty. Hour. Famine.

As I was writing this post I was trying to come up with a clever title. Something catchy, memorable. The more I thought about it the more I realized that thirty hour famine is the only title that will do. I mean really, hearing about someone not eating for thirty hours - that's a pretty good attention grabber.

Thirty hours. I watch the seconds slowly tick by. I can physically feel the energy drain out of my body; I leave it behind me. We keep going. Ten hours left. I can hardly stand up without the room spinning, the floor slips from beneath my feet . . .

Just kidding! It wasn't that dramatic. But at the same time it was, but not in the way I expected.

We arrived at the church on Friday sometime around five o'clock. I was already feeling hungry. What else do you do on the weekends except eat? Plus the fat girl inside of me likes an after school snack (more like a pre-dinner). Thirty hours without food. It was all my friends and I could talk about that day. How were we going to survive? Just like those starving children in Africa who survive every day with little to nothing in their stomachs.

We all congregated in the teen room and gave each other looks: "What are we doing here?" and "Why are doing this?" I know. For the starving children in Africa. We watched quite a few videos about children who have nothing. (What else are we going to watch a video on? Children who have everything? Uh, yeah, no.)

After being moved to almost-tears we received a card with a child's name on it. We were to be that child for the weekend. My child's name was Kasia from Afghanistan. Each child had a disability and along with that disability came a story. Kasia was in a firefight that devastated her village. She was placed in a camp with thousands of other people who had lost their homes. She has a severely damaged eye. The aid workers tell her she will never regain her vision.

In order to act out my child I had to wear sunglasses with duct-tape over one lens. I thought it would be easy, no problem. But you know what? It was really hard to see with one eye, and a shaded one at that (they were really dark sunglasses!). As I ran into chairs and people, I squinted to see what my friends disabilities were. They received limps and burnt hands and damaged vocal chords.

We hobbled down to service and waved at all of the adults who were watching us. I found my way to a chair without smashing into anyone and the music started playing. Just like any other worship service I began to sing. It's so easy to let your mind wander when you're singing. I am constantly thinking about homework that isn't finished or that guy over there who keeps staring at me. (Keep your eyes to yourself!) But since I was half-blind this time I just closed my eyes and swayed to the music. Before I knew it I was completely and totally one with the lyrics I was singing. The song that was playing was "Marvelous Light." How ironic. My favorite line from that song: "Lift my hands and spin around/See the light that I have found/Oh the marvelous light, the marvelous light." I was able to shut out the world and focus on worshiping my God. The God who loves everyone, even the starving, even Kasia.

Don't You Know You're Beautiful

I was looking up music on YouTube when I came across the song "Don't You Know You're Beautiful" by Kellie Pickler.

What a great song! It just makes me happy. Kellie explained her song on her MySpace page. She wanted to share with all the girls out there that they are important and they do matter. She said, "In today's society we, including myself, often compare ourselves to that person or model on the front of the magazine, and we all want those expensive clothes that are displayed. I think that is just human nature. I will be the first to tell you all of that is not real."

This song was Kellie's first single and it shows that she is just like every other woman out there and she too struggles with insecurity. Her song empowers women to have confidence in themselves and that there are more important things in life than fitting in.

You are beautiful! Know it. Live it. Love it.