On a recent Friday evening, my wife and I were in a retail store looking for a Christmas ornament to give as a special gift. The store was very quiet. There were no lines at the registers. The cashier looked dazed and exhausted from the recent craziness of the holiday season. I tried to make light of the situation by commenting, “Nine pm on a Friday is sure a great time to shop here. I’ll bet you are dreading Saturday morning though.”
The young cashier smiled and said, “I used to look forward to weekends, until I started working here.” I’ve worked retail at Christmas. I still feel the pain. Around the middle of November, all vacations are frozen. There are no sick days allowed. You are expected to work every night and weekend and EVERYONE works the days after Thanksgiving and Christmas. The song says, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” Before I became a follower of Jesus, I pondered: “if this is what being a Christian is all about, I don’t want to be one.” Here we have the biggest holiday of the year, named after the biggest name in religion and all I could see, as a non-believer, was the insanity of covetousness, materialism and selfishness. If that was the “spirit of Christmas,” I did not want any part of it. I never thought the Christmas season could get any less Christ-like, but I was wrong. One parent said, “I don’t want my kids to think we can’t afford Christmas.” People! Christmas is not about finances! I recently heard about a family that bought all their children cell phones, of the pre-paid variety. Once the 30 days were up, the phones shut off. The parents insisted that they just wanted their kids to feel special on Christmas day. Then there was the parent who went to the local rental store and rented a laptop for her child for Christmas, only to take it back when she could not afford it. She just wanted her child to be able to brag to his friends about his gift. In contrast, I heard of a Christian family who chooses to celebrate the occasion as “Jesus’ birthday.” They have a cake, sing “Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus” and share gifts with one another. When one of the children was asked if she had gotten everything she wanted for Christmas, she said, “No. But it wasn’t my birthday, was it?” Another family decided, rather than purchase gifts, they would give the money they would normally spend to a worthy cause. The family would research and discuss which charity was in the most need and place an envelope under the tree with their decision. I like a recent e-mail I received that said, “Pssst: Your honey doesn’t want an iPad for Christmas. He wants a goat! Or maybe a piglet…” The promotion was for a charity, serving the needs of impoverished people around the world. The idea was to redirect my Christmas money to the needy. It even came with a link to an online catalog. For $205, I can buy a water pump to serve a whole village, feed a family of 4 for a month with $12, or feed a child for a year with $36. Now THAT’s Christ-like giving. What if you can’t afford to make a donation? Give of yourself! Find a place that needs some help, and volunteer the gift of your time. Find a need and donate your hands, feet and your smile. You want to know the best way to find out what you could do? Listen to your own complaining, and set out to fix the problem. Do you know someone who is struggling? Give them with your abundance. And do it all in the name of Christ, who is the perfect gift: James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Merry Christmas!
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In recent weeks, I noticed that there has been an increase in airport security which has the whole nation in an uproar. People are being searched in places that, quite frankly, should be left private.
I also noticed a recent poll revealing the condition of the hearts of Americans—44% of young people and 33% of older Americans are now a part of a growing trend in the belief that marriage is obsolete (source 1). Do you see the relationship between the two? A third statistic in this correlation reveals that more than 25% of Americans have left their faith and 25% of young Americans say they are not affiliated with any religion (source 2). How can these events be similar? What is the common thread between airport security, marriage, and faith? The answer: TRUST… or lack of it. Trust is hard for Americans. We’ve been brought up to be self-sufficient, self-conscious, to have a good self-esteem and to lift ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Americans are in the mindset that if a job is going to get done right, “I have to do it myself.” Many Americans spend their whole lives climbing, clawing, fighting, and stabbing their way to the top, only to find someone looming behind them, waiting to stab out with a law-suit of their own. Trust requires that we lose ourselves, and become vulnerable. Americans don’t want to do that. As Christians, however, losing the sense of self is what we are called to do—practice humility. My wife Diane’s favorite Bible passage is proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge HIM, and He shall direct your paths.” When I asked her what was so significant about this passage, she said, “Two words: the word trust, and the word all.” She said that when we go into relationships, with a group, a lover, or God, we tend to hold back just a little. We tend to leave an escape hatch. We go into the relationship expecting to fail and planning to be unsuccessful. If our hopes for the relationship are not met, we don’t try to work it out; we take our ball and go home, just like a five-year-old. I remember one preacher saying, “All means all and that’s all all means.” As believers, we are called to “trust with all.” Yes, we will get hurt. Expect to get hurt, plan to get hurt—no matter what the consequences, we cannot fail at trusting. No matter who you are, your expectations will not be met 100% of the time. That’s not what life is about. True happiness is not found through a sense of self-satisfaction in which there is no trust. I’ve found that when I am happiest, I am letting God direct me, without leaning on my own understanding or power. I am happiest when I am putting all of my trust in God. So what does it mean to put all of your trust in God? It means stepping aside and allowing Him to take the reigns. If God is merely your co-pilot, switch seats. Allow Him to take control. Here’s a hard question: who is sitting on the throne of your heart? Who is in the driver’s seat of your life? If you are fighting for possession of the throne of your heart, give it up. Submit to his Lordship. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart…” If Jesus is your king, why are you wearing the crown? When we adopt the name “Christian,” we are saying that we belong to Christ Jesus, and that HE sits on our throne. We are saying that HE IS LORD. If Jesus is not LORD of your life, please stop using the name, “Christian.” One of the greatest joys I have is finding other believers who “Trust in the LORD with all their heart.” The joy is that I automatically know that Jesus is on the throne of their hearts—I know I can trust them. Pastor Jay Merritt Source 1: pewsocialtrends.org/2010/11/18/the-decline-of-marriage-and-rise-of-new-families Source 2: religions.pewforum.org |
AuthorPastor Jay Merritt writes about God in every day observations. Archives
August 2013
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