Recalculating Devotional: Day 10

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.
Proverbs3:5-6 (NLT)

My freshman year of college, I borrowed a friend’s car (I didn’t have one of my own) so I could take a group of friends to the movies. I was especially interested in taking one of the girls in the group to the movies and wanted to play it cool so she’d be impressed.

Our college was in the middle of downtown Minneapolis and the theaters were at a mall in the suburbs. I had been out there a couple of times although I wasn’t driving and
didn’t really pay attention. But I had a pretty good idea of where I needed to go and I had the keys, so away we went. I had been driving for about thirty minutes (it should have taken 15 minutes) when people started to question my navigational skills and suggesting we stop for directions, which of course, was out of the question. So, instead of asking for directions and getting back on the right path, I continued to drive, confident that I could figure it out.

Well, to make a long story short, I drove around for almost an hour, never found the mall, and we missed the movie. It took me a while to live that one down and it taught me a valuable lesson: don’t overestimate your ability to get there on your own.

King Solomon was known as the wisest man who had ever lived, and he wrote most of the Proverbs, a collection of wise sayings. In Proverbs 3, he reminds us not to depend on our own ability (understanding) and to instead trust in the Lord. The result? “He will show you which path to take.” Thanks to the GPS in my vehicle and in my phone, I don’t really get lost too often anymore. I am also willing to stop and ask someone now. But there are definitely times that I feel lost in life. There are times when I really struggle with a decision to make or a direction to take. There are also times when I know I need to “recalculate” an area of my life. That’s when these words from Proverbs come to mind. They remind me that if I will seek God and trust Him with my life, He will show me the right path to take.

Is there a decision you are trying to make, or a turn around you need to make? How much are you trusting the Lord to direct you?

Put On Compassion

2020 was a hard year for everyone. You would be hard-pressed to find anyone who came out of 2020 unscathed. But what truly discouraged me wasn’t the lockdown or working from home.

It wasn’t the political conflicts or the social unrest.

The thing that hurt my heart the most was seeing the way Christians reacted towards people, especially on social media. 

My issue wasn’t that people had opinions. I adamantly support people forming their own opinions and beliefs, especially when they have the diligence to do research and truly search for answers. What really concerned me was the lack of compassion we seemed to have for others.

Merriam Webster defines compassion as “a sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” Compassion isn’t just feeling bad for someone or wishing they didn’t have to struggle;  it’s also a desire to make things better, to actively seek out ways to support the hardships of others.

I have worked with school-aged children for a third of my life, and for the past few years, my focus has been on supporting students who have a hard time managing their behavior. These kids are amazing! And their stories would break your heart. I have learned so much from working with them, but there are two specific things that I have realized:

• Behavior communicates.

• Hurt people hurt people.

How someone behaves communicates something. When I watch the news, especially any clips regarding politics or social injustice, what I see is people communicating that they are hurt and angry. When I see people sharing their views on social media, what I see is people longing to be heard. And when I see people attacking others, what I see is a lack of compassion for anyone who thinks differently or holds a different opinion.

Disclaimer: I’m all for open debate and argument; the way we go about it, the amount of compassion we have (or don’t have) is the issue.

I think part of the reason we lack compassion is because of how much access we have to knowledge. The Apostle Paul warns us about the danger of knowledge in 1 Corinthians 8. In this passage, Paul is writing a letter to a group of Christians in the ancient city of Corinth, answering some questions they have about living as believers in the culture around them. One of the issues they were struggling with was whether or not they should eat meat that was sacrificed and offered to idols. During that time, part of the meat was given to the priest that oversaw the sacrifice; if he didn’t want it, he could sell it in the marketplace, and it was often cheaper than other meat options (even the ancient people loved a good deal!).

Paul starts out his answer to the Corinthians by saying, “We know that ‘we all have knowledge.’ Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (verse 1). In the next couple of paragraphs, Paul goes on to basically say that eating the meat wasn’t a problem because the Christians knew idols aren’t real--the sacrifices didn’t really mean anything. However, he also makes the point that not every believer has this understanding yet, and that needed to be taken into consideration. Newer Christians, especially those who grew up sacrificing to idols might be bothered by their conscience in regards to the sacrificed meat. Not only did the priest get a third of the meat after the sacrifice, but the family participating got a third of it too (the rest went to honor the god they were worshipping). Here they were trying to turn away from the life they once had to pursue the one true God, and yet, they kept getting put in their old situation by fellow believers offering them sacrificed meat.

So what does eating meat have to do with compassion and our access to knowledge?

The meat wasn’t the issue. I honestly don’t think Paul really cared about the Corinthians’ meal planning habits. The issue was how they were treating one another and the lack of concern they had for people who thought differently. Instead of seeking to alleviate the struggles of their fellow believers, those who thought they “knew better” were letting their knowledge and understanding inflate their self-importance. There wasn’t any compassion towards another person, just “Well, I know this is right, so I don’t see why you have a problem with it.”

In today’s culture, we have immediate access to any information we seek. It’s incredibly easy to find evidence that will support any opinion you have. That’s an incredible privilege! I work in education, so I will always advocate for learning and using the tools available. But privilege also comes with responsibility. The issue isn’t having knowledge, it’s about how we use it and how it affects us. The more we know, the more temptation we face to think we know better than someone else, to get a little too “puffed up” for our own good. Are we using our knowledge to tear down others or to actively seek ways to alleviate their struggles?

Showing Compassion

It Starts With Yourself

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from therapy, it’s that if you aren’t able to treat yourself with compassion, you won’t be able to treat others with compassion in an effective way. Oh, sure, you can fake it a bit, but eventually what’s inside will come out. If you want your outward actions to be compassionate, your heart has to be compassionate, and that starts with being compassionate to yourself.

Know who you are in Christ. Know what God thinks of you. Know and believe the value you have because of what God has done for you.

View People with the Right Lens

How you view people will greatly affect how you interact with them. How do you see those around you? Do you see them as knowing less than you? Or do you see them as image-bearers of God? It doesn’t make a difference if they have the same views as you or the same beliefs--if we hold to what the Bible says, each person was created in God’s image and has His breath in their lungs. Do you see them that way?

Viewing another person as someone who is desperately loved, valued, and cherished by God will help you have the desire to love them, too.

Serve without Expectation

As we discovered earlier, compassion isn’t just a feeling. It’s an action. And it’s how we’re called to live. Throughout the New Testament, God calls us to act with compassion. In Colossians, we’re told to put on compassion. In Galatians, we’re called to bear one another’s burdens. God expects us to help others carry their struggles. If we truly want to follow Christ’s example, showing compassion isn’t something we get to opt-out of. In fact, 1 John tells us that if we know someone is in need but we withhold compassion, how can we claim to know God’s love?

Look for ways to serve other people. What can you do to make someone’s day easier? What can you do to help alleviate some of their stress? Jesus Himself modeled this when He decided to feed a crowd of followers so He could continue ministering to and teaching them (Matthew 9:35-36). He had compassion on them because He saw they were distressed, so He served them in a very human way--by giving them free food! Showing compassion doesn’t have to be a grand, extravagant event; it just has to come from a heart that sincerely cares.

The way we love other people, the way we show compassion, is the way people will know Who we represent. There are a lot of things I’m still figuring out about life, about my faith, about how to live in this crazy world, but this is what I know without a shadow of a doubt to be true: God has radical compassion and love for human beings, not just as a group, but as individual people, and we are called to be a reflection of that.

Recalculating Devotional: Day 9

Early the next morning Joshua and all the Israelites left Acacia Grove and arrived at the banks of the Jordan River, where they camped before crossing. Three days later the Israelite officers went through the camp, giving these instructions to the people: “When you see the Levitical priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, move out from your positions and follow them. Since you have never traveled this way before, they will guide you.
Joshua 3:1-4 (NLT)

When you are traveling somewhere you’ve never been before or you are in unfamiliar surroundings, one of the greatest gifts you could have is an experienced guide. Someone you can trust who knows the way.

Last January, I was part of a group from Journey Church that traveled to South Africa to work with Blessman Ministries, one of our mission partners. One of the things we got to do on our trip was to go on a photo safari. It was an amazing experience seeing zebra, giraffes, rhinos, elephants, and lions in the wild. At one point on our safari, our guide stopped the vehicle and showed us some really big lion prints in the dirt road we were traveling on. The tracks were headed one way, so our guide took us the other way.

I couldn’t imagine wandering around that area by myself with no idea where I was going or what was out there. Maybe you’ve felt that way at times in your life. When you moved to a new city, started at a new school, or tried to figure out how to be married as a newlywed. I have experienced many, “What am I doing here?!” moments in my life.

That’s probably how Israel felt when they were getting ready to go to the Promised Land, a place God was giving them so they could live and grow there. There were only two problems: One – people already lived in that land and weren’t interested in leaving. Two – no one in Israel’s travel party had been there before. They didn’t know where they were going. So, God told them (through Joshua) to follow Him. They were supposed to wait for the Ark, which represented God’s presence, to go in front of them and follow it. They had no idea where to go and God’s solution was to lead them. GOD became their GPS. And it worked!

Here’s the great news. Wherever your life takes you and whatever path you have to walk, God has already been there and He will lead you. You just have to choose to follow His path and not the best one you can come up with. You haven’t traveled this way before, let Him guide you.

When you are facing uncertain circumstances in life, where do you look for direction? Who or what do you follow?

Recalculating Devotional: Day 8

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right path for his name’s sake.
Psalm 23:1-3 (NLT)

During my lifetime, the tools we use to navigate have changed a lot. As a kid, when our family went on trips, my dad would drive the car down the highway while my mom unfolded a giant map and plotted the shortest and quickest route to our destination. He was the pilot, she was the navigator. Eventually, our glove box full of road maps was replaced by an atlas, which was a book full of maps of every state. We swapped a poster size road map for an oversize book full of them.

Somewhere in the ’90s, the internet helped us find MapQuest (which was an early, clumsy cousin of Google Maps). You would plug in your starting point and your destination and MapQuest would give you a route, which you would then use to print out pages of driving directions. Then along came the GPS for your car, which had to be constantly updated. These days, we all just open an app on our phone or tell it where we want to go, and step-by-step it gets us there. No one gets lost anymore.

One of the great bonuses of swapping our maps for apps is that a GPS has the ability to recalculate. When you miss a turn, change your destination, or when the route changes, you don’t need to buy a new map or print out new directions. Your GPS recalculates the path for you.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a GPS for life? We do. In Psalm 23 (the Lord is my Shepherd psalm), we read that God guides us onto the right path for His name’s sake. Like a shepherd that tracks down a wandering lamb and gets it back to the right place or a friendly voice that recalculates our route and gets us on the right path, the Holy Spirit will guide us when we choose to listen to God wants to say to us. The key for us is what Jesus said in the New Testament. “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me…” (John 10:14). When we listen for His voice, He directs our steps.

What is the most lost you have ever been on a trip? What did you do? When you feel lost in life, who do you listen to as you recalculate?

Recalculating Devotional: Day 7

But now I have finished my work in these regions, and after all these long years of waiting, I am eager to visit you. I am planning to go to Spain, and when I do, I will stop off in Rome. And after I have enjoyed your fellowship for a little while, you can provide for my journey.
Romans 15:23-24 (NLT)

If you could take your dream trip anywhere in the world, where would you go? A chalet in the Alps? Kicking it at the beach on a South Pacific island? Site seeing through Europe? A Caribbean cruise? Maybe a week in a kingdom run by a mouse? There are so many amazing places in the world, it’s hard to choose just one place.

The Apostle Paul had a dream destination. For years he planned and waited for an opportunity to go to the most important city on the planet at that time – Rome. It was the capital of the Roman Empire and the most powerful and influential place Paul could think of to preach the Gospel. In his letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul wrote that “after all these long years of waiting, I am eager to visit you.” Paul’s dream was about to come true! He would travel to Rome as a preacher to tell as many people as possible about the resurrected Christ.

Well, Paul did eventually make it to Rome, but not as a preacher. Paul got to Rome as a prisoner. He had been arrested and imprisoned for preaching about Jesus and because riots broke out wherever he did so. So now he was being sent to Rome for a trial before Caesar. Instead of arriving in Rome in style, Paul arrived in chains. But that didn’t deter Paul.

For two years Paul told anyone he could about Jesus, which started to lite a flame that became a fire. When Paul arrived in Rome, one-half of one percent of the world had heard of Jesus (and no one in Rome had heard of Paul). But centuries later, almost 3 billion people are Christians, and there is a statue of the Apostle Paul in Rome. The point? God will always get you where you need to go, even if the route doesn’t look like what you planned. But it’s ok, because you can trust Him.

How has your life turned out as you imagined? How has it turned out differently than you imagined? How have you seen God working in all of it?

Recalculating Devotional: Day 6

Next Paul and Silas traveled through the area of Phrygia and Galatia, because the Holy Spirit had prevented them from preaching the word in the province of Asia at that time. Then coming to the borders of Mysia, they headed north for the province of Bithynia, but again the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them to go there. So instead, they went on through Mysia to the seaport of Troas. That night Paul had a vision: A man from Macedonia in northern Greece was standing there, pleading with him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us!” So we decided to leave for Macedonia at once, having concluded that God was calling us to preach the Good News there.
Acts 16:6-10 (NLT)

Have you ever had a door slam closed on something that you were sure was going to be a great opportunity for you? Your life was headed in a great direction and then you ran into a “ROAD CLOSED” sign.

One time it happened to me was during my junior year of college. I had been car-less for the first two and a half years of school. I had to rely on public transportation or bumming rides off my friends to get around the Twin Cities where my college was located. Then an opportunity to get a brand new car for free came my way. I got the chance to shoot for one during half-time of a minor league basketball game. I won the contest that night and got invited back for a “shoot off” against the other high scorers from the season. I kept shooting and I kept winning and I ended up in the finals. It was down to me and one other guy for the car. The day of the final game I spent hours at the local YMCA working on my shots and imagining grabbing the keys to that car. I was sure that God was going to help me get that car since I couldn’t afford one of my own. So that night I showed up, shot well, and had the highest score I got during the entire contest. And I lost. We met at half court and the other guy got handed the car keys, I got a handshake. It felt like the door had slammed in my face.

Maybe you’ve had that feeling. It might have been not getting the job you were sure you had locked up. You didn’t get into your chosen college and had to settle for your ‘safety school.’ Your relationship with ‘the one’ didn’t pan out. Or you walked out of the doctor’s office with a diagnosis you never saw coming.

In Acts 16 we read about a trip that the Apostle Paul and his friend Silas took. Two different times they had a plan and two different times, God closed that door. It had to be frustrating and it had to make Paul wonder if he was doing the right thing. But instead of giving up or going home, Paul and Silas waited. They put their focus on God instead of on their agenda. And eventually, God opened a new door that ended up having a global impact (check out the story in Acts 16). We often see a closed door as REJECTION, but God often uses closed doors for REDIRECTION. We focus on our plans, but God directs our steps. Paul and Silas trusted God for divine direction and it worked out for them. I am confident God will do that for you too.

When is the last time you faced a closed door? How did you respond? What did God teach you through that experience?

Recalculating Devotional: Day 5

Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.
Psalm 119:105 (NLT)

Driving in the city and driving out in the country are two very different experiences. When you drive in the city, here are all kinds of lights to help guide you. Street lights, lighted signs and buildings, porch lights, light streaming from the windows of homes and businesses. Light everywhere. It’s pretty easy to see what’s ahead and to find your way to where you’re going. It’s a well-lit pathway. Sometimes it’s so well lit, we even forget to turn on our headlights when driving. That never happens in the country.

In the country, streetlights are few and far between. There are fewer homes and even fewer businesses, and they often close early. The path you are traveling is not nearly as well-lit or clear. Out there you are not going to forget to turn on your headlights. You have to have them to see where you are going. But headlights don’t illuminate the path all the way to your destination, they give you enough light in front of your car to keep you going forward.

I don’t know about you, but I like a well-lit pathway. I like to know where I am going and not have to worry about finding my way or missing my turn. There have been times when God has made my path just that clear. But often my life feels more like a drive in the country, figuring things out turn by turn as my headlights help me to keep going. The good news is this, God wants to work both ways in our lives. Sometimes He will give us a light for our path, and we will be able to run with it. At other times, He will provide a lamp for our feet and help us to take the next step. We won’t always be able to see to the end of the road, but we can trust Him with our next steps.

What pathway is God illuminating or step is He lighting up for you right now?

Recalculating Devotional: Day 4

At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him. Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, “Are you also going to leave?” Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.”
John 6:66-69 (NLT)

The old saying is, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” but we all know that when the going gets tough, the crowd tends to get smaller. Admiral William McRaven (US Navy, retired), shares about his experiences during “Hell Week” as he became a Navy Seal. McRaven recounts hours spent swimming in freezing water, running miles in the sand, and existing on little to no sleep. During the entire week, instructors kept reminding them of one fact: you can quit any time you want. All a trainee had to do we walk over to a bell and ring it three times and it was over. No more running, no more freezing, no more pain. They could enjoy a warm meal and a warm bed, they just had to ring the bell. Any many, many, many people have rung that bell.

In John 6, there was a “ring the bell” moment. As Jesus engaged people with His teaching, performed miracles, and even fed them, the crowds that followed Him had continued to swell. Then, Jesus began to let them know about the cost of becoming one of His followers. When the going got tough, they got going. Jesus asked His closest followers, the twelve disciples, if they wanted to leave too. Peter spoke up for the group and told Jesus they weren’t going anywhere because He [Jesus] had the words of life. In other words, the cost of following Jesus was worth it because He alone could lead them to eternal life. What a great reminder for us as we pray! That when we ask God for wisdom and take time to listen, He can give us the right words, the words that bring eternal perspective and eternal life. “Speak Lord, Your servant is listening, because you have the words that give eternal life.”

What are some of the words of Jesus that have been most helpful to you in your life?

Recalculating Devotional: Day 3

Samuel did not yet know the Lord because he had ever had a message from the Lord before. So the Lord called a third time, and once more Samuel got up and went to Eli. “Here I am. Did you call me?” Then Eli realized it was the Lord who was calling the boy. So he said to Samuel, “Go and lie down again, and if someone calls again, say, ‘Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went back to bed. And the Lord came and called as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel replied, “Speak, your servant is listening.”
1 Samuel 3:7-10 (NLT)

Have you ever spent time with someone who’s idea of conversation is doing all the talking? You can feel like the only time they listen to you or ask for your opinion is to set up the thing they want to say next (FULL DISCLOSURE: I am sure that I am that person who won’t stop talking sometimes). When I am in a conversation like that, I feel like an adult in a Charlie Brown cartoon. Whenever I am talking, all they hear is, “Wawawawawawawaa….” Maybe that’s why James says in the New Testament that we should be, “quick to listen and slow to speak” (James 1:19). Often, I am so eager to say what I want to say that I don’t always hear what I need to hear.

I think that same principle carries over into prayer. Prayer is a conversation with God, but we often do most of the talking in that conversation. We share our questions, our needs, or wants, even our complaints, but how often do you or I LISTEN when we pray? Answering for myself, I will say, “not enough.” In 1 Samuel 3, Samuel was a young man who would eventually become the spiritual leader of Israel. God wanted to speak to him and he wasn’t sure what to do. So he followed some good advice from his mentor, Eli, and simply said, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.” What a great way to approach God! What would it look like if the next time you prayed, you focused on listening before you began speaking? Or if you shared your heart with God and then waited, expecting Him to answer you? Today, when you pray, try James’ advice: be quick to listen and slow to speak. Allow God to give you the divine direction you need.

When can you set aside some time to be quiet and say to God, “Speak, your servant is listening?”

Finding Freedom From Fear

It was cold and overcast in Washington DC on March 4, 1933, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt prepared to deliver his first inaugural speech. The United States, as well as the rest of the world, was mired in the depths of the Great Depression. Between the day FDR was elected and when he took office, 4,000 banks in the US were forced to close. At the Capitol, Roosevelt braced himself on his son James’ arm and made his way to the podium to deliver hope to the nation. It was at the beginning of this inaugural speech that Roosevelt uttered one of the most famous lines in American history, “…first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” That line stuck in the heart of every woman and man, giving them hope that things could change.

While those words are still inspiring today, they are easier said than done. In the same way listening to the song Don’t Worry, Be Happy doesn’t make all your problems go away, telling yourself (or being told by someone else) not to fear doesn’t always help. Yet from cover to cover in the Bible, God repeatedly says to us, “Don’t be afraid.” There are 365 “do not fear” statements in the Bible—that’s one for every day of the year. Over and over again, in all kinds of situations, God instructs and even commands individuals and groups not to be afraid. These statements aren’t based on the circumstances (“It’s not that big of a deal”) or the ability of the person who’s afraid (“You’ve got this!”). God tells us not to fear because He’s got this, and we can trust Him. 

While God tells us repeatedly not to fear, there is actually one type of fear that the Bible tells us to embrace. It’s the fear of the Lord. Proverbs 1:7 tells us, “Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” So, what are we supposed to do? Fear not or fear the Lord? The answer: yes.

The key is understanding what the Bible means when it says “fear” the Lord. When that term shows up in the Bible, it’s not talking about an unhealthy fear that is disproportionate to the danger. That’s the kind of fear that makes a mountain out of a molehill and causes us to worry, stress, and give up. 

When the Bible talks about fearing the Lord, it is talking about a healthy fear. It means having an understanding of who God is compared to us. It means respect, reverence, awe, and honor. It can even be translated or seen as worship. It’s like the healthy respect we have for our parents. It’s the fear that a good electrician might have for the power of electricity. It doesn’t keep them from doing their work, but their fear of its power causes them to handle it cautiously and respect its power. 

Nicky Gumbel, an Anglican pastor in England and the author of the Alpha Course for discipleship, writes, “Fear God and you need not fear anything else or anyone else.” When we have a proper respect for the power and majesty of God, we realize that we don’t have anything else to fear. It is what inspired the Apostle Paul to write in his letter to the Roman church, “If God is for us, who can ever be against us?” (Romans 8:31) Like a child who walks down the street completely unafraid because her father is holding her hand, when we honor and fear the Lord, we don’t have to fear anything else. When we see God for who He really is, our problems get a lot smaller and our fear subsides. The Gallup polling organization demonstrated that first hand in our crazy 2020.

A Gallup Poll released in early December 2020, showed a serious decline in mental health and anxiety among Americans during 2020. Given how crazy 2020 was, it’s not a shock. In the poll they found that every group they surveyed, regardless of gender, political party, race, age, marital status, or income had experienced a decline in mental health of -1 to -15%. Except one. One group had a positive mental health change of +4% in 2020. That group: people who attended religious services on a weekly basis. While they were living in the same circumstances and experiencing the same upheaval as everyone else, they were like salmon swimming upstream against the current when it came to mental health and peace of mind. If you needed another reason to make church a priority this weekend, there you go. 

Fear God and don’t need to fear anything else. Allow Him to take on the weight of those things that are stressing you out and making you want to run away and hide. How? A great way to start is by following the instructions that Paul gave to the church in Philippi: “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7)

What can defeat fear? The peace of God. The peace of God exceeds anything we can understand. In other words, God will give you a peace that doesn’t make sense. You should be freaking out, but you aren’t. Everyone else in your social media feed is losing it about the latest crisis in the news, but you’re not. Why? Because God is covering your mind and heart with His peace. He’s got this. You don’t have to be afraid. To paraphrase FDR, “We have nothing to fear but the Lord Himself.” And when we do that, we don’t have to fear anything else.

Recalculating Devotional: Day 2

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind.
James 1:5-6 (NLT)

When I was a kid, I went garage sale-ing with my mom and for 25 cents I picked up a treasure – a Magic 8-Ball! Remember those? They’ve been around since the 1950’s and they are still making them today. The “magic” of the Magic 8-Ball is that you ask it a yes or no question, shake it up, then look at the window on the side of it to see what the answer is. You could get anything from, “It is decidedly so,” to, “Ask again later,” to, “Outlook not so good,” as an answer.

While it was fun to ask the ball goofy questions and see what it would say, most of us didn’t use the Magic 8-Ball to help us solve real problems or figure out our futures. My guess is that you didn’t use a toy that you can purchase for under $10 when you decided to propose or say yes to a proposal. You didn’t shake it up before choosing a college, a career, or a city to live in. But where do you turn when you need direction in your life? How do you make wise decisions?

James was the half-brother of Jesus and the author of the book of James in the New Testament. His instruction to us in James 1:5 is that when we need wisdom, when we are not sure what to do and need insight that will help us make the right decision, we should ask God for it. When we do, James writes, He will give it to us and He won’t rebuke us for asking. If you’ve ever had a teacher, a coach, a parent, or a boss bite your head off for asking a question they thought you should already know the answer to, you know how uncool that is. But James says God is not like that. He wants to give us divine direction. He doesn’t want us to be like a wave in the ocean that gets tossed back and forth all the time. If you need wisdom about how to handle a relationship, a situation, or a decision, ask the Lord for help. He wants to give you the direction you need.

Who or what do you usually turn to when you have to make a decision? When is the last time you turned to God for that wisdom? Today is a great day to start.

Recalculating Devotional: Day 1

"We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps."
Proverbs 16:9 (NLT)

At the beginning of my senior year of high school, I thought I had all of my future plans set. While I grew up going to church with my family, during my junior year my faith became real and personal to me. That summer I felt like God was directing me to go to a Christian college and prepare to become a pastor. So I applied to a college our denomination had, got accepted, and was all set. Then, in the middle of the school year, I got a letter informing me that the college was closing and merging with another school on the other side of the country. All of the sudden all of my plans went up in smoke.

Because of that decision, I began to look around at other schools (which I had not done earlier because I had a plan) and ended up going to North Central University in Minneapolis. That change ended up being a great opportunity for me – apart from experiencing a type of cold I didn’t know existed. I had the opportunity to learn from some of the top professors in their field and made relationships that have opened doors of opportunity for me throughout my life. And all of that happened at a school I had never really heard of or known about before a closed-door caused me to take a look around.

Proverbs 16:9 reminds us that while we make plans, it is ultimately the Lord that will determine or direct our steps. Maybe you’ve had an experience like mine. You had a plan that made all the sense in the world – until it didn’t work out. Maybe you have had a job you hated or lived somewhere that you didn’t want to be and in the moment you wondered why. But later, you were able to look back and see how that job was a step that got you to where you are now. We tend to focus on our big plans, while God is moving us where He wants us to be by determining our steps. When you read Proverbs 16, you find several verses about our plans and God’s purposes. If you are in the middle of making a decision right now and you’re not sure what direction to go, ask the Lord to help you understand the next step to take.

Is there an area of your life where you are looking for direction? Ask God to show you the next small step to take.

Are We There Yet?

Melissa Kitcher was excited to complete her first-ever half-marathon in 2016. She trained. She prepared. She prepped. And then, she got lost.

During the Trail Hog Half-Marathon near Sarasota, Florida, Kitcher went missing for nearly twelve hours after missing some turns and running off the course. She ended up six to seven miles off course with no way to contact anyone or get directions (her phone inconveniently froze two minutes before the start of the race). Kitcher ended up running over 16 miles instead of the 13.1 miles of the race by the time she was found, uninjured but very thirsty.

Have you ever had an experience like that, where you got lost on a hike or missed a turn on your vacation trip and ended up in the wrong city or state? Nowadays, since everyone carrying a smartphone, our GPS is only a tap away, and getting really lost is a thing of the past. Most of the time we don’t even worry about getting directions when we need to go somewhere, we just plug it into our GPS and follow the step-by-step directions to get us to our destination. It makes travel so easy.

Wouldn’t it be great if there were a GPS for our lives?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could get step-by-step directions to help us make all of our big decisions? Answers to questions like, “Where should I go to college? What should I major in? Is he or she ‘the one’?” If someone could invent an app that would lay out a route for our lives, that would become the most downloaded app in history. Having a clear road map to follow would make life a lot easier and get rid of a lot of life’s stresses.

This month at Journey, we’re starting a new series called “Recalculating.” Throughout this series, we’ll talk about how each of us can receive divine direction in 2021 as we navigate the stops and starts and crazy turns of life.

While the Bible doesn’t offer us a simple, neatly packaged answer for navigating life, it does show us that God wants to walk with us and provide us with the direction we need for life’s journey.

Proverbs 16:9 tells us, “We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” As humans, we tend to focus on our plans, our hopes, dreams, goals, and aspirations. We want to reach the end of the road and arrive at our destination. But God is more concerned with the steps it takes to get there. Like little kids in the back seat during a road trip, we keep asking, “Are we there yet?”, and God responds, “You are right where I want you to be.” While we focus on the big picture, the Holy Spirit wants to help us take the steps and make the turns that will get us there. We may want to see the whole route, but God wants us to trust Him as He helps us take the next turn.

Imagine that you and I hopped into my car to drive from my house to your house for the very first time. Before we took off, I wouldn’t sit in my driveway and ask you to give me a detailed, turn-by-turn route to your house then try to drive there based on my memory of what you told me. I would just back out and start driving down the street. When we got to the corner, you would tell, me, “Take a right.” At the next intersection, you would tell me to keep going straight or to turn, and so on. Eventually, we would pull into your driveway. I didn’t need to know the entire route to your house ahead of time because you were in the car with me and could tell me where to turn and when we had arrived.

In the same way, God won’t often show us the whole route for our lives. But He will travel with us through life, helping us to find our way step-by-step and turn-by-turn. We just have to be willing to listen to His divine direction. You may be waiting on God to show you the final destination in an area of your life, when He is simply saying, “Take a left at the next corner.”

Melissa Kitcher’s wild adventure in her first half-marathon didn’t discourage her from trying again. When she was interviewed by a local paper about her experience, she already had another upcoming race in mind to try again.

Maybe you have gotten lost at times in your life and felt like giving up. I want to encourage you to try again, to ask God to determine your steps and help you make the next turn. Like Melissa Kitcher, don’t let your past mistakes keep you from pressing on.

I hope you will join us in January for Sunday messages, small group discussions, and individual devotions that will help you learn to listen to God’s divine direction.

Let the journey of 2021 begin!

Resolve to Become, Not Just Do

Well, we made it. The end of 2020 is just hours away, and most of us can’t wait to turn the page on this ______________ (insert your own word here) year. A year ago, we were wrapping up 2019 and looking forward to a new year with “2020 vision,” with lots of hopes and dreams for a new year and a new decade. Well, it certainly was a year to remember, even if most of us would rather forget it.

As we get ready to head into 2021 hoping, “it’s got to be better than last year,” you may be following the time-honored tradition of setting some goals or resolutions for the new year. A new year, like a new month, a new week, or even a new day, seems to hold a ton of possibility. A clean slate. A chance to start over.

It is ironic that we make new year resolutions, which mean, “a firm decision to do or not do something,” and then give up on 75% of them by the end of January. I know we go into those resolutions with a sense of determination, but often that resolution fades in relatively short order. Goals that seem really important on January 1st don’t seem to matter as much on February 1st. Fun fact: The desk in the Oval Office of the White House is called the “Resolute Desk” and was constructed from timbers from the HMS Resolute, an English ship used for exploring the Arctic. At 1,300 pounds, it is definitely ‘resolute.’

Why don’t our resolutions seem to hold the same weight?

I believe one of the major reasons is that we often focus our resolutions on goals or habits—things we do. We take our already busy lives and we add more things to do or projects to get done. It’s like we are trying to keep a bunch of plates spinning in our lives, and we set a goal or make a resolution to learn how to spin more plates. But what if we made a different resolution this year?

What if, instead of resolving to DO something, we resolved to BECOME something? 

To become more generous.

To become a better listener.

To become more encouraging.

To become a better spouse or parent.

To become a better employee or boss.

For example, if you made it your resolution to be a better spouse this year, you could focus on the words of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:21, where he tells husbands and wives to, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” With that as your resolution, what could that look like in 2021? Maybe it means planning regular date nights. Or maybe it’s choosing to put your phones away in the evening when you get home from work. Maybe you plan a vacation or getaway together or choose a devotional that you can read together.

The possibilities are endless, but the goal is significant: becoming a better spouse. You can take that same approach with many areas of your life, but starting with a significant “why” (becoming something) can be the motivation for taking action and forming habits that will get you there. Saving more and spending less is a common new year resolution, but without a purpose, it often goes by the wayside. But if your reason for spending less and saving more was to become a more generous person, you would find it easier to pursue that resolution. 

Resolving to become someone rather than just doing something is a concept that falls in line with what we understand about God from Scripture. When you read the Bible, you’ll often find that the people in the stories are trying to get something done or reach a place. But in those stories, God is more interested in helping them become someone. King Solomon wrote it this way in the Old Testament book of Proverbs:

“We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” – Proverbs 16:9

We make plans—places we want to go, a timeline for when we want to get there, etc. But it is God who determines or guides our steps in the process. We focus on the destination, God focuses on the direction, the steps we take in becoming who He has made us to be.

So, as we turn the page to a new year, be resolved. Not just to crossing off your 2021 bucket list, but to becoming someone, someone that God is calling you to be. When you become that person, you’ll be amazed at where God takes you and where you end up.

Happy New Year!

Under the Radar

There is a story that on July 4, 1776, the king of England wrote in his diary, “Nothing of importance happened this day.” Whether that really happened or it was just a cool urban legend is debatable, but it is true that significant moments can often take place under the radar.

Take the year 1809. The world was in a tumultuous situation. Napoleon was sweeping through Austria and blood was flowing freely. Nobody cared about the babies being born. But there were some pretty significant births taking place. 

For example, William Gladstone was born that year. He would become one of England’s finest statesmen. That same year, Alfred Tennyson was born to an obscure minister and his wife. He would one day greatly impact the literary world. On the American continent, Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And not far away in Boston, Edgar Allan Poe began his eventful, albeit tragic, life. It was also in that same year that a physician named Darwin and his wife named their child Charles Robert. And that same year produced the cries of a newborn infant in a rugged log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky. The baby’s name? Abraham Lincoln.

If there had been television or radio broadcasts or news feeds at that time, I’m certain we would have heard these words: “The destiny of the world is being shaped on an Austrian battlefield today.” But actually, history being shaped in the cradles of England and America. 

In the same way, on the day that Jesus was born, everyone thought the Roman Empire, taxation, and an unhinged leader named Herod were the stories that would shape the world. But, in a small stable in Bethlehem, a young Jewish woman and her blue-collar husband held the biggest news of all: the birth of the Savior, the One who would be called, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). 

The “under the radar” birth of Jesus would shape and form human history like no one before or since. History itself is measured against His life, dividing the years into BC and AD. The glorious news for us is that God is at work in our lives under the radar as well. Even when it seems like nothing is going right and everything is going wrong, God is at work, and we can trust Him. We might not see it, and our family and friends might miss it too, but God is at work. Jesus would tell His followers, “My Father is always working and I join Him in that work.” That is such a sustaining promise in the moments when we feel like that king of England in 1776, when we feel like NOTHING is happening in our lives.

If you’re feeling like that in your life this Christmas after a year of craziness, here is a promise from Paul’s letter to the Galatians:

“So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.” – Galatians 6:9

”At just the right time.” I love that. When will God send a harvest of blessing into our lives? At just the right time. 

So, we shouldn’t give up. And here’s the cool part of this thought: what God will do in your life at just the right time has probably already started, it’s just under the radar. God had a plan for Jesus to save the world, but it took thirty-three years for just the right time. For thirty-three years it looked like nothing big happened in a stable in Bethlehem and then the world changed. And God continues to work that way in our world. We’ve just been through the wildest year most of us can remember. Is it possible that God is ready to reveal something in the near future—at just the right time—that will change everything again? 

This week, as we celebrate a birth that seemed like no big deal at the time, be encouraged. God is still working under the radar in your life, and, at just the right time, He will bring a harvest of blessing into your life. Merry Christmas!

The Unlikely History of "O, Holy Night"

This Christmas season, we are talking about “rejoicing in a weary world.” That idea was inspired by the line from “O, Holy Night” that says, “A thrill the of hope, the weary world rejoices.” That line was used to describe the birth of Jesus. It was also inspired by 2020, which has made us all weary…

“O, Holy Night” has a really cool backstory that reminds me about how God often chooses the most unlikely people to accomplish His mission. Much like He used an obscure engaged couple from a small village called Nazareth, some blue-collar shepherds, and an empty stable in the birth of the Messiah, the writing of “O, Holy Night” is full of surprises.

The story began in France but eventually made its way around the world. This simple song, inspired by a request from a clergyman, would not only become one of the most beloved anthems of all time, but it would also mark a technological revolution that would forever change the way people were introduced to music.

In 1847, Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure was the commissionaire of wines in a small French town. He was more known for his poetry than his church attendance, so it probably shocked Placide when his parish priest asked him to write a poem for Christmas mass. Nevertheless, the poet was honored to share his talents with the church.

While he was traveling to France’s capital city, Cappeau thought about the priest’s request. Using the gospel of Luke as his guide, Cappeau imagined what it would have been like to witness the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. Thoughts of being present on the blessed night inspired him. By the time he arrived in Paris, “Cantique de Noel” was completed.

Moved by his own work, Cappeau decided that his “Cantique de Noel” should not be just a poem but a song. Not musically inclined himself, the poet turned to one of his friends, Adolphe Charles Adams, for help. 

The son of a well-known classical musician, Adolphe had studied in the Paris conservatory. His talent and fame brought requests to write works for orchestras and ballets all over the world. But the lyrics that his friend Cappeau gave him surely was a challenge to the composer because he did not celebrate Christmas.

As a man of Jewish ancestry, the words of “Cantique de Noel” represented a day Adolphe didn’t celebrate and a man he did not view as the Son of God. Regardless, Adams quickly went to work, attempting to compose an original score to Cappeau’s beautiful words. Adams’ finished work pleased both the poet and the priest. The song was performed just three weeks later at a Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. 

Initially, “Cantique de Noel” was wholeheartedly accepted by the church in France, and the song quickly found its way into various Catholic Christmas services. But when Cappeau walked away from the church and became a part of the socialist movement and church leaders discovered that Adolphe Adams was a Jew, the song—which had quickly grown to be one of the most beloved Christmas songs in France—was suddenly and uniformly denounced by the church. The heads of the French Catholic church of the time deemed “Cantique de Noel” as unfit for church services because of its lack of musical taste and “total absence of the spirit of religion.” Yet even as the church tried to bury the Christmas song, the French people continued to sing it, and a decade later an American writer brought it to a whole new audience halfway around the world.

This writer, John Sullivan Dwight, felt that this wonderful Christmas song needed to be introduced to America because he saw something in the song that moved him beyond the story of the birth of Christ. An ardent abolitionist, Dwight strongly identified with the lines of the third verse: “Truly he taught us to love one another; His law is love and His gospel is peace. Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother; And in His name, all oppression shall cease.” The text supported Dwight’s own view of slavery in the South. Published in his magazine, Dwight’s English translation of “O, Holy Night” quickly found favor in America, especially in the North during the Civil War.

Adams had been dead for many years, and Cappeau and Dwight were both old men, when on Christmas Eve 1906, Reginald Fessenden—a 33-year-old university professor and former chief chemist for Thomas Edison—did something long thought impossible. Using a new type of generator, Fessenden spoke into a microphone and, for the first time in history, a man’s voice was broadcast over the airwaves: “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed,” he began in a clear, strong voice, hoping he was reaching across the distances he supposed he would.

Shocked radio operators on ships and astonished wireless owners at newspapers sat stunned as their normal, coded impulses, heard over tiny speakers, were interrupted by a professor reading from the gospel of Luke. To the few who caught this broadcast, it must have seemed like a miracle, hearing a voice somehow transmitted to those far away. Some might have believed they were hearing the voice of an angel.

Fessenden was probably unaware of the sensation he was causing on ships and in offices; he couldn’t have known that men and women were rushing to their wireless units to catch this Christmas Eve miracle. After finishing his recitation of the birth of Christ, Fessenden picked up his violin and played “O, Holy Night,” the first song ever sent through the air via radio waves. When the carol ended, so did the broadcast—but not before music had found a new medium that would take it around the world.

Since that first rendition at a small Christmas mass in 1847, “O , Holy Night” has been sung millions of times in churches in every corner of the world. And since the moment a handful of people first heard it played over the radio, the carol has gone on to become one of the entertainment industry’s most recorded and played spiritual songs. This incredible work, requested by a forgotten parish priest, written by a poet who would later split from the church, given music by a Jewish composer, and brought to Americans to serve as much as a tool to spotlight the sinful nature of slavery as tell the story of the birth of a Savior, has become one of the most beautiful, inspired pieces of music ever created.

And to me, that’s part of the story of Christmas, something worth rejoicing about, that God works in incredible and unforeseen ways in your life and mine to make a difference in our world. I hope you enjoy the wonder of Christmas this December and make yourself available to God in the coming year.

Doing Math God's Way

I am probably the last person in the world that should attempt to teach a math lesson. Every math teacher I had in school and college would agree with that statement, and so would my kids who I tried to help with their math homework and would my former employers. My wife would definitely agree. Nevertheless, I’m going to take a shot at sharing a simple little mathematical formula that I believe is helpful in the moment we are living in:

 ADDITION + MULTIPLICATION > DIVISION + SUBTRACTION

 I don’t know how well that would hold up in an Algebra I class, but I do know that it holds up in life and in the way Christ-followers live their lives. I think it is doing math God’s way. Addition and multiplication are definitely greater than division and subtraction.

 Right now, division and subtraction are the mathematical principles of our culture. 

Left vs. Right.

Red vs. Blue.

Progressive vs. Conservative.

Mask vs. No Mask.

Stay Home vs. Stay Open.

Vaccine vs. It’s a Hoax.

 Division, or the “us versus them” mindset, dominates the airwaves (Are you Fox News or MSNBC?), our social media, and increasingly, our relationships. Division in our culture often leads to subtraction through cancel culture and the ending of relationships. People are walking away from family members, lifelong friends, and organizations because they hold a different view. Division and subtraction. 

 Sadly, the math of our culture is finding its way into Christ’s church and local church expressions. Rather than focus on what unites us—Christ and the need that each and every one of us has for Him—we follow the lead of culture and coat it in spirituality, believing that anyone serious about their faith must share our position. As author and pastor Mark Batterson, whose church is based in the most partisan place on the planet, Washington DC, recently stated in a podcast, “Some people are more evangelistic when it comes to their political ideology than their biblical theology.”  

 The reality is that when division takes place in the church, it always results in subtraction. Many will believe that “this church” or “the church” has no place for someone like me or someone who believes what I believe. Others will be “cancelled” and marginalized, as they are told, “Those views are not welcome here.” Division and subtraction are the math our Enemy likes to employ. But it’s not the math that Jesus teaches His followers. If you win the argument but lose relationships in the process, what have you gained?

 While our culture may pursue division and subtraction, our church, the church of Christ, is called to practice addition and multiplication. Jesus instructed His followers to practice addition when He told them, “Go out into the country lanes and behind the hedges and urge anyone you find to come, so that the house will be full” (Luke 14:23). Jesus said His purpose in coming to live among us was to, “Seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10). Jesus came to add people—like you and me—to His family, and He called all of His followers to do the same thing.

 The church is called to practice addition, and we do so by bringing people to Christ. That addition leads to multiplication. In the New Testament book of Acts, we read about the start and the history of the church, and we read that, “the Lord added daily to the number who were being saved” (Acts 2:47). As the church continued to grow, it multiplied. It spread from a church to becoming many churches; it went from a few leaders to many people being trained and used as leaders. Rather than just practicing addition in the church, they began to see exponential multiplication. If you are reading this and you are a Christian, you are one result of the addition and multiplication that began 2,000 years ago! The good news is that Christ intends for addition and multiplication to continue, and the church—which includes you and me—are to be a part of that process. But we can’t add and multiply if we allow division and subtraction to come into our hearts and minds. The gospel is for people on all sides of the political sphere, and if you want to reach people on both sides of the aisle, we need to live and love people as a non-partisan church.

 If you are a part of Journey Church and you have read this far, thanks! I want to say this to you as your pastor: I love and appreciate every one of you. I love you if your views agree with mine, and I love you if they don’t. I also believe that the truths of Scripture should be the foundation of our lives rather than the planks of any political party or agenda. In fact, if you only identify with every single plank of one party, are you thoughtfully and prayerfully looking at every single issue?

 The reason we started Journey Church eight years ago was to help people take their next step toward Christ, to move forward in their spiritual journey. We base our vision on addition and multiplication by adding people to the Kingdom of God and our church, and by multiplying through church planting, missions, and discipleship. We want to do God’s math. If we allow division and subtraction into our culture, we will stop pursuing Christ’s purpose for His church, and will actually be working against it. I don’t want that to happen, and I am sure you don’t either. I really believe that addition and multiplication are greater than division and subtraction. To that end, I want to ask you for a couple of favors:

•  Before you post or retweet your latest “mic-drop” meme, stat, or quote, ask yourself, “Why am I posting this? What am I trying to accomplish? Will this post add and multiply or will it divide and subtract?”

• Reflect on that thought from Mark Batterson, “Am I more passionate and evangelistic about my political ideology or my biblical theology?” 

• Determine to love those whose beliefs and perspectives about politics, candidates, election results, COVID, or other hot-button topics differ from yours. Jesus told His followers that it wasn’t a big deal for them to love their friends (people who agree with us)—that’s easy. His challenge to them was to love (bless) their enemies (people who didn’t agree with them).

• Decide that you will practice God’s math (addition and multiplication) rather than our cultural math of division and subtraction. Let that decision influence every conversation, every post, every tweet, and how you treat the people around you.

Finally, please remember that truth is often found in the tension. When you talk with someone rather than yell at them, you will find greater perspective, and you will preserve relationships.

Church, let’s do God’s math together.

A Less Than Ideal Christmas

Have you ever had a less than ideal Christmas? 

I have.

It happened during my junior year of college. We were a week away from our final exams and looking forward to an almost month-long Christmas break. I was working my way through school as a security guard, and I was trying to figure out how I was going to miss those weeks of work and still be able to come up with enough money to pay for my second semester of college. A few days before Christmas, my boss came to me and asked me if I had any interest in sticking around over the Christmas break to work. He said I would get paid double-time and that it would be pretty easy work. I wanted to go home to see my family for Christmas, and hang out with my friends, but I really needed the cash, so I decided to stay. It really wasn’t too bad for most of the time I was there. Most of the students and faculty were gone, and things were pretty quiet. It was just kind of lonely and desolate.

I remember getting done with my shift on Christmas day. Because the cafeteria was closed, I went back to my dorm room and popped a package of Ramen noodles in the microwave and watched old Christmas movies on TV. I took a bit of a break to go call my parents from the payphone at the end of our hall and wish them a “Merry Christmas.”  Then I came back and just sat there. It was weird. I was used to being with family and friends, exchanging gifts, sharing the Christmas story, and all the other things that we typically think of when we think about the Christmas holiday.

Maybe you’ve had an experience like that: a time when you spent your Christmas away from all your family and friends. Maybe you spent Christmas in a hospital ward or overseas on a military post. Maybe you had a time when there weren’t any gifts to give or receive because finances were a huge barrier. Maybe there’s been a time when you felt estranged from your family and friends, and instead of a Norman Rockwell type family setting at Christmas, it felt more like you were standing next to cousin Eddie in National Lampoon’s Christmas vacation. In other words, a less than ideal Christmas.

Our culture does an incredible job of portraying the ideal Christmas. All the cards, movies, songs, displays at the mall, and advertisements portray a Christmas that’s so amazing. It’s like the holiday song Andy Williams crooned decades ago, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” But our lives often look more real than ideal. And in the same way, the story of Jesus’ birth, The Christmas Story, is real, not ideal, and that’s what makes it so hopeful.

Take for instance, Mary, the mother of Jesus. She had to convince her fiancé, Joseph, the village carpenter, that she had not been unfaithful to him, but that what happened to her was supernatural, that God Himself was the father of the baby she had within her. She had to convince her family that when she went to stay with her cousin Elizabeth and then came home visibly pregnant, she had done nothing wrong. She had to convince the religious leaders of the Jews in her village that she had not become pregnant outside of marriage, which would have made her a candidate for being stoned to death according to their law.

The situation also had to seem less than ideal to Joseph. Here was a guy doing the right thing, getting married to this young woman from his village, and now she’s pregnant. And everyone’s talking about it. And they’re talking about what a sucker he is to believe her story, and staying with her, when he could dump her at least, and have her put to death at most. But he didn’t do it; because God spoke to his heart. Although he knew the truth, it couldn’t have been easy.

Then there was the census. For some reason, the Roman leaders decided right about the time that Mary was due to give birth would be a great time to round everybody up and count them so they could tax them. So, Mary and Joseph had to make a ninety-mile journey, either walking or on the back of a donkey. Now, I’m not much of an equestrian—I’ve only ridden a horse once in my life—but while I was doing it, the thought never crossed my mind, “Hey you know who would really love this? My wife. And you know when she would probably think it was the coolest? When she was nine months pregnant!” But that’s exactly what Mary experienced. Whether she walked or rode an animal, it couldn’t have been a great moment for them; and definitely was less than ideal.

 The ideal setting for Jesus’ birth was a bed, in a nice clean environment, with a midwife available, and the support of family and friends just outside the room. But that is not how Jesus came into this world. The Bible tells us He was born in a stable, in a place where animals stayed. Mary gave birth to her Child right there on a pile of hay in the middle of a stable, and that became the birthplace of the Savior of the world. Definitely not ideal.

Jesus’ birth doesn’t sound as much like Silent Night as it does the birth of Samuel Katz, Lillian Braverman, or Dorothy Melnick. They are three of the over 350 children born on Ellis Island as their parents emigrated from countries in the “old world” to be a part of the “new world” in America. In the middle of chaos, as thousands of people, speaking hundreds of languages and dialects, stood for hours and sometimes days, waiting for the opportunity of coming to America, children were born. And those children became a bridge between the old and the new for their parents. In the squalor of makeshift birthing wards, just feet away from people dying of various ailments and arriving after weeks spent at sea coming to America, they were the promise of a new beginning for their families.

Not too long after His birth, because of threats to His life, Jesus and His parents left Israel and fled to Egypt as refugees. They stayed there because there was an infanticide taking place in Bethlehem, as Herod tried to eliminate any competition to his throne. Jesus began his life as a refugee, as someone who had to leave His home and go to another place for His safety. As we encounter the refugee crisis that is going on in our world today, it should give us pause to think about the fact that Jesus began His life that way as well.

That isn’t how I would have written the Christmas story. I’m an idealist—I would have planned it out differently. If I wanted everyone to know Who Jesus is and put their faith in Him, I would have given Him a royal birth to elite parents in a significant period of history. My story would be ideal. Jesus’ birth was real.

All these things remind me of something hugely important that I sometimes forget: Jesus didn’t come here in an ideal setting; He came into our real world. It reminds me that He understands the reality of my world. The Bible says that Jesus, “was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain” (Isaiah 53:3, NIV). The Scriptures also tell us that Jesus is, “one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet he did not sin” (Hebrews 4:15, NIV). Jesus understands my hurting because He has known pain. He relates to my struggles, because He experienced temptation. Christ didn’t come to live in some ideal setting, but He came to live in the reality of the world that I’m currently a part of.

Christmas also reminds me that following God and trusting Him may cause me to be misunderstood, just like Mary and Joseph had to feel misunderstood as they did what God asked them to do. I’ve never had a dream when an angel told me that I should do something, but I’ve definitely had times in my life when I felt that God asked me to take a step of faith. And there have been times when I took a step of faith and the people around me didn’t understand it. It didn’t make sense. It went against the grain of culture or expectation. But it if it wasn’t for Mary and Joseph’s willingness to be obedient in the real, we never could’ve experienced the life that Christ offers to all of us.

Another thing that Christ’s birth and the Christmas story reminds me of is that life doesn’t always look the way I expect it to. I’m sure when Mary thought about her life as she grew up and being married someday, she didn’t picture herself standing at the altar pregnant and under suspicion. I’m sure Joseph didn’t expect that for his future wife, either. I’m sure it never occurred to Mary that the best place to give birth to her first child was in an animal stable, alone, in a place miles and miles from her home and family and friends.

The story of Christmas, the story of Jesus’ birth, gives us hope and reminds us that in less than ideal situations, when things don’t turn out how we believed they would, God is still with us. In this less than ideal situation, Jesus was born as Immanuel, “God with us,” and that’s a visible and tangible reminder of God’s faithfulness to be with us in every circumstance and situation. It’s a messier story than we often portray. There is a lot more uncertainty and risk than we sing about. But it’s a real story. And it’s a story that doesn’t just offer joy and hope during the holiday season; it’s a story that we can cling to when life gets real, all year long.

The Scarcity Problem

Remember when we first learned about the potential lock-downs due to COVID-19? People rushed to grocery stores and started hoarding supplies in a way that would make anyone in a zombie apocalypse movie jealous. The internet erupted with memes and stories of people with cartfuls of toilet paper! Even in our small midwest towns, the aisles were bare (hopefully none of us had to resort to using old t-shirts for toilet paper, but you do you).

Obviously, we were all scared. We haven’t faced a pandemic before, so there was (and still is) a lot of uncertainty about how to prepare. But I think that our actions during that time showed a deeper problem in our society and in ourselves: the scarcity mindset.

What Is a Scarcity Mindset

To put it simply, the scarcity mindset stems from a belief that there isn’t enough to go around. It’s a belief that says there are only so many resources available, so I have to grab all of them or I won’t have enough. It’s a belief that if someone else has something, I can’t have it, so I have to get it first.

Having a scarcity mindset isn’t always bad. When you have a deadline, that feeling of scarcity helps you ignore all other distractions in order to get your work done. It’s a survival instinct that our brain uses to keep us alive. Stress works in the same way; when you’re in a stressful situation, your brain tells your body to put everything on high alert, which is why blood pressure rises and heart rates increase. Your brain is telling your body to get ready to move out of that situation in order to keep you safe. The problem is that we allow stress and scarcity to control us rather than seeing them as the warning signs that they are.

When we allow a scarcity mindset to become our only mindset, we give it the power to affect our thinking and feelings. Scarcity orients the mind automatically and powerfully to unfulfilled needs, which causes heightened feelings of jealousy and inadequacy. Everything becomes a competition. Remember the toilet paper example from earlier? Because people felt like toilet paper was a scarce resource, a competition arose to get more toilet paper than someone else. It was the belief that I have to have more than that person, or I won’t have enough for me and my family. 

We see the scarcity mindset play out in relationships and the workplace all the time. We have a hard time celebrating with people when they get engaged or get a promotion because we live in a mindset that says there’s only so much success to go around. If someone else is successful, that takes away the opportunities I have to be successful.

If we’re not careful, social media can fuel a scarcity mindset too. Have you ever seen a post on Instagram of a perfect mom with a perfect body doing perfect things with her perfect kids? And you instantly felt jealousy or a feeling of inadequacy and had a strong desire to point out her flaws? That may be because you’re living with a scarcity mindset and in order to make yourself feel better, you have to put her down. It’s the belief that because her life is going great, there’s less opportunity for my life to be great.

When we feel insecure or jealous, our ability to be generous reduces. We simply can’t be generous when we feel insecure. It’s easy to see how that makes sense when it comes to our material resources -- when I feel insecure financially, it’s way more difficult for me to be generous with my money -- but it’s true for our immaterial resources too. When we feel insecure about the blessings we have, when we believe there’s only so many blessings to go around, we have a hard time with other people being blessed.

Moving From Scarcity to Gratitude

Clearly, we have a problem with scarcity, but how do we get out of that? How do we move from the idea that there’s only so much to go around to one that celebrates and is confident that we will have everything we need?

The answer? Gratitude.

We hear the word gratitude thrown around all the time, especially during the Thanksgiving season, but what does it mean exactly? Gratitude is the expression of appreciation for what one has. It’s that spontaneous feeling that comes up when you’re surrounded by loved ones, and you think, “You know, life is pretty great right now.”

But we don’t have to wait for that feeling to happen. An attitude of gratitude (hahaha, I’m a poet and didn’t even know it) can be cultivated. Like most things in life, gratitude can be strengthened by practice, by making a conscious effort to count our blessings. There are benefits to practicing gratitude as well — it’s not just something that makes you feel good. Practicing gratitude shifts our attention from negative things to positive ones; it trains our brains to look for the good in a situation rather than the bad. This leads to more positive emotions and can help reduce stress.

Now, I will say that making a conscious effort to count our blessings is much easier said than done, but aren’t most things in life that are worth having? Here are some steps to help you start cultivating a spirit of gratitude.

1. Know where your blessings come from.

With a scarcity mindset, we’re tempted to think of God’s blessings as pie (sticking with a Thanksgiving theme here). If someone else takes a piece, there’s less for me! But that’s not how blessings work. We worship a God who is all powerful and has unlimited resources. When we trust God as the source of all things, we swim in an eternal current of blessings with enough to go around. It’s not a pie we pass around, hoping there’s enough left over for us.

James 1:17 tells us that every good and perfect gift comes from God. Whether it’s in our own lives or in the lives of those around us, the good things that are happening are gifts from God. We can celebrate with others and express gratitude because we know those blessings are from God, and God’s blessings never run out. 

In Philippians, we’re promised that God will supply all of our needs. When we trust that God is who He says He is and that He will provide for us, we can express gratitude in whatever circumstances we face. When we know our blessings come from God, we can fight against the stress and fear in our lives. When those warning signs I talked about earlier start going off in our minds, we can remind ourselves that God will take care of us.

2. Make a habit of identifying what your blessings are.

Doing a quick Google search of “practicing gratitude” will give you many ideas about how to practice gratitude, but my favorite is creating a gratitude journal. This has been extremely impactful in my own life, as it gives me the ability to look back on all the ways God has blessed me, especially when I’m prone to forget those things. 

It does take work and dedication though; you have to make it a habit and a priority. Each night, I take about 10 minutes before bed to write down things I’m grateful for. They don’t even have to be huge things -- sometimes the best blessings are the smallest things. I usually find myself writing down small blessings, like my dog’s derpy faces that always make me laugh or a hug I got from a friend.

Again, this practice is helpful for turning off those warning signs our brains give out. When we start feeling panicked about not having enough or being enough, we can look back at all the ways God has blessed us, and know that we’re going to be okay, even if it doesn’t feel like it in the moment.

3. Include others.

In Scripture, God tells us we were blessed to be a blessing. One of the best ways to bless and encourage others is by including them in your gratitude practice. Let people know you appreciate them -- write them a letter or send a card expressing your gratitude. It can even be as simple as saying, “Thank you!” to the pizza delivery guy! Be intentional about letting others know they are appreciated.

4. Include thankfulness in your prayers.

We are commanded in the Bible to thank God for all He has done, but too often, our prayers are more like “to-do lists” for God than thanking Him. We have the tendency to come to God with a list of requests, rather than worshiping Him for what He has done. Try starting your prayer off with something you can thank God for, even if it’s something simple!

If you’re in a good place right now, and you think you do a pretty good job of being thankful, that’s great! But it’s important to practice these things even if you don’t think you need them. There will eventually come a time when the negativity is too much, and you’ll want to have these habits in place to help during that time. Sports teams practice drills they may never need in a real game so that they have them at the ready just in case. Practicing gratitude is the same for our spiritual and mental health.

I know that 2020 has been a trying year for a lot of us. Everyday we are bombarded with the negative things happening in the world around us. But there is always something we can be thankful for. As someone who struggles with chronic depression, cultivating a spirit of gratitude has been a tremendous support and balm for my mental health. It’s helped me train my mind to look for the positive things in my life rather than be bombarded by the negatives.

A lot of times, we try to make things a bigger deal than what they actually are. Practicing gratitude doesn’t have to be some profound act that takes a lot of time. The easiest way to start is by taking small, simple steps. Here’s a sweet video to get you started:

A Work In Progress

If you ever want to feel a little better about the list of home-repair or home-improvement projects you never seem to get done, just think about La Sagrada Familia. 

La Sagrada Familia is a cathedral in Barcelona, Spain and is considered one of the most beautiful buildings in the world – despite the fact that it is unfinished. The cornerstone for the cathedral was laid in 1882, and under the guidance of architect Antoni Gaudi, construction moved forward, starting in 1883. Gaundi died in 1926, but the cathedral is still under construction today. In fact, the celebration of completion is scheduled for 2026 on the centennial of Gaudi’s death. If they make that deadline (can something that lasts this long really be called a “deadline?”) the cathedral will have been under construction for 144 years!

During his lifetime, people would often ask Gaudi, “When will the basilica be completed?” or, “Will it ever be completed?” His favorite response was, “My client is not in a hurry.” Gaudi believed he was building something for God and that He wasn’t in a hurry.

See, I told you your to-do-list wouldn’t seem so bad.

In his letter to the Christians in Philippi, the Apostle Paul tells us that as a Creator or re-Creator, God isn’t in a hurry either. In Philippians 1:6, Paul writes:

“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

Thit verse is one  I have heard quoted a lot in the church. There have even been worship songs inspired by that verse. The thought of what God starts in us, He will complete, is an encouraging one. I have read that verse, quoted that verse, and taught about that verse many times. But when I read it a couple of weeks ago, I understood it in a way I never had before. I have always been focused on the “what God starts He will finish” part. But that’s not how Paul’s statement ends. While Paul does say that God will finish what He starts, he then continues to explain how long it will take — a lifetime. My lifetime.

When I became a Christian as a junior in high school, God started a good work in me, and He is continuing His work in me. Here’s what I realized the other day: the work won’t be done in my lifetime. God’s work, His life-transforming process, won’t end until Christ’s return or my death. As much as I want to think that I have become who God calls me to be, or as much as I feel like a mess, God is working. He is completing His work in me. When I was a kid, I remember seeing people with bumper stickers on their cars that said, “Be patient with me, God’s not finished yet.” I thought that was a cheesy cop-out at the time, but now I get it. He isn’t finished with His good work in me yet, and won’t be in this lifetime.

That’s a sobering, scary, exciting thought, but here’s what really hit me about that verse: not only will God be completing His work in me until the very end of my life, He’s doing the same thing in you. We’re all a lifelong work in progress (hopefully we can all stick around as long as La Sagrada Familia). The reason that verse hit so hard was because I know that I am still a work in progress, but I often forget that you are too. So I get impatient with people. I think they should know better. I wonder how they could be a Christian for so long and still think or act a certain way. I even want to give up on people who I think should have it more together than they do. 

But here’s the deal: the One Who continues to do a good work in me is still at work in those people, too. And that work is going to last for a lifetime. If God’s not giving up on them and is still continuing the work in their lives, I can stick with them, too. And I can show them grace and mercy and forgiveness and long-suffering and all the things the Bible tells us to extend to each other, just like God does.

One of my coaches growing up had a saying he would us when he was pushing us in practice or a game: “Pressure busts pipes.” This crazy 2020 has put a lot of pressure on us emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and even physically. Relationships have become strained. Tempers have gotten shorter and more explosive. Sides have been drawn and social media circles have tightened. All of these outcomes may have caused you to write some people off, or at the very least considered it. But here’s the hope: God’s still working. In you. In me. In “them.” Remembering that can help us stop for a beat, take a breath, and say a prayer when someone doesn’t live up to our expectations. 

I hope that the La Sagrada Familia gets done in 2026, and I hope people will be able to enjoy its beauty for centuries. And I hope you will experience God’s good work in your life this year, next year, and in the years and decades to come. I also hope that when you see the incompleteness and work-in-progress parts of other people, you can also see the beauty in what God is building. The One who started a good work in you, me, and them is faithful and will complete that good work, even if it takes a lifetime.