The Nature of the Nativity: Day 14 - The Manger

It's Day 14...almost done with our journey. I've enjoyed our time together, and I hope you have too. Today we are going to place our manger in the stable and get it ready for Jesus to come tomorrow.

The Nature of the Nativity: Day 12 - King Herod

It's Day 12! Christmas is almost here. I hope you're ready for all the holiday excitement; we don't want any Scrooges or Grinches this year. Speaking of Scrooges and Grinches, today we are going to look at King Herod. I know that you won't find King Herod in a nativity, but he is an integral part of the Wisemen's and Jesus' story...plus I needed another post to get to 15. So let's unwrap our King Herod figurine and give him a look. Don't you love how his arms are crossed? It makes him look rather haughty and unhappy.

The Nature of the Nativity: Day 9 - The Shepherds

It's Day 9; don't you just love Mondays? I do.We have staff devotions, and then staff meeting. Then, if the preacher's here, the ministers all go eat Mexican food. If the preacher's not here, the rest of the staff rebels and eats anything but Mexican food...except me because I love cheese dip. Sadly they have now built a certain fast food Mexican establishment here in Pontotoc; one that doesn't serve cheese dip. I have the feeling that we will be frequenting that restaurant whose name rhymes with Shmocko Shmell. Well, enough about my problems. Let's get back to setting up our nativity. Today is all about the shepherds.

Forsaken Son

Easter is nearly here. On Sunday morning, my family will wake up, get dressed, and join with countless others around the world to celebrate Christ's resurrection from the dead. We will sing praises to God that are filled with barely containable joy. We will listen, with enraptured hearts, to a sermon proclaiming the wonders God has done for us through Christ Jesus. But now, in this week leading up to Easter, we remember the awful things that lead up to our Easter joy. As we read the events found in the Gospels, we come face to face with pain, suffering, grief, and unimaginable love.

Grass Mowing Goats

...I hate mowing my grass...

I hate mowing grass. Let me rephrase; I hate mowing my grass. A good part of our yard is low, so water collects from our yard and from our neighbors' yard. This means it takes twice as long for it to be dry enough for me to not leave holes and ruts when I mow. All the excess water feeds gigantic clumps of crab grass, not to mention a variety of weeds, that grow twice as fast as the centipede grass that is in the rest of  the yard. On top of that, if my grass gets too tall, I run the risk of receiving a fine from the city. So, if it rains on a consistent basis, I find myself in ankle deep marsh sludge using my weed eater to knock the tops off the mutant grass and weeds that infest my yard. There are many days that I have wished I owned some goats to make the whole thing easier.

Garbage Can Lids and Snarling Wolves

My town recently went to the big, plastic, flip-top garbage cans for the garbage truck with the mechanized arm. This is great for a number of reasons. The cans are larger and sturdier than the ones you can buy at the store. This one will hold a weeks worth of trash plus whatever junk I pull out of the garage. The hinged lid means I don't have to go searching for the lid after every thunderstorm. The truck comes down the road instead of the back alley, so now I don't have to traipse across the back yard in the torrential downpour to take the trash out. Most importantly it frees up the old metal trash cans and allows them to be used in a more vital roll...shields. If you've got a stick and a garbage can lid, you're all set for a fun afternoon. Growing up we had the big, stupid, plastic ones but my grandparents had two metal ones with lids. The best thing was, my grandfather had a cinder block pit where he burned trash so the cans were usually empty and the lids were fair game! Boy did my brother and I stink at blocking with those shields.

Garbage can lids are not very effective shields. For a shield to be effective it has to fit the situation. A small round shield works great for hand to hand combat between two lone fighters, but wouldn't do so good deflecting a flight of arrows. By the same token a larger, knee to shoulder shield works great against arrows but could hinder a fighter in a gladiator bout. Certain shields were designed for certain things and to use them successfully you have to use them the way they were intended to be used. To use them any other way, or to use a garbage can lid instead, can lead to dire consequences. Grab your Bible and turn to John chapter 10.

Mood Rings and Offshore Phone Calls

Do you remember mood rings? I never had one, but I had a few friends who did. The basic premise is that our body temperature changes depending on how we are feeling. The crystals in the ring are extremely sensitive to heat changes with different colors representing a higher or lower body temp. There is some correlation between stress and body temperature, so there might be some truth to the mood ring. I wish my wife had worn a mood ring before we started dating. If she had, I might have had a clue that she was interested. By her account, she waited for me to ask her out for over a year. She's even told me how irritated she would get when I would go out on dates with another girl during that year. Deep down I still believe she should have said something. Maybe she could have passed one of those notes from the third grade during Sunday School...(Circle yes or no if you'll be my boyfriend). Maybe not, I probably would have fallen off my chair if that would have happened. I bring all this up to say that I had no clue what was in this young lady's heart. God, however knows the hearts of all men. 

Fire Detectors and Fish Prayers

I have the privilege to work with some fantastic preschool teachers and aides. They love kids and do a good job teaching them, much better than I would do. There is very little for me to do except stay out of the way of their well-run school program. However, sometimes things happen to mess up our carefully made plans and you just have to go with it. Last month our school had a visit from the fire marshal. Apparently the building that was put up in the late 50's was never inspected for educational purposes. Now, we are working to resolve all matters with the State Fire Marshal, but it's been hysterical in the mean time...mostly because I don't have to do it. The main problem we are facing is that there is no fire alarm system in the building. We have smoke detectors, but not a building wide fire alarm system that an educational building in Louisiana is required to have. To compensate for this while we install one, someone has to do a visual check of each room in the building (I stopped counting at 18) and then call it in to the office that there is no fire...every thirty minutes. I know it's mean, but I actually snickered out loud when the fire marshall was sitting in my office telling me this. For the most part I'm a "by the book" person, so I typed up a form and organized our aides into a temporary fire watch team (I almost got little fake badges). It took about two weeks for the aides to get it straight, because they still had classroom duties to attend to. They eventually had to work out a rotating schedule because they could only be in one place at a time. The aides were limited by space and time. God, however, is not.

Tracking Hurricanes

Growing up in South Louisiana, you learn things you don't necessarily learn everywhere else. Some of it is practical experience, like what size alligator you can hit with your car and it not do damage. How fast a water moccasin can swim in flood waters. What is a  nutria exactly?(Google it; so nasty!) One of the things you learn in school is how to track hurricanes on a tracking map. Now, I was lucky that I've never experienced a major hurricane, but like you, I have seen the devastation that a hurricane can do. In the last few months, the US has seen out breaks of tornadoes that have done massive damage to people and property.  When viewing the aftermath of one of these storms, I would dare say it is impossible to not be awed at the power of wind.

The last few weeks we've been exploring God's character. We've looked at the attributes that make Him who He is, but we won't have a complete picture of who God is until we look at His capabilities.

You're GROUNDED!!

Has anyone else ever had to suspend a punishment? Come on parents, be honest. I've discovered that when I punish in the heat of the moment, I often go too far. However, when I send my wife to her room to think about what she's done...just kidding sweetheart! When I send my child to his or her room, most of the time it gives me a second to put it all into perspective. I'll remember that they are only four. I acknowledge that they had no clue that what they were doing was wrong. At the very least, the punishment will better fit the crime and the "criminal" and hopefully they'll know that their Dad loves them and only punishes to help them learn. God says that He is just. The guilty are punished, with no excuses or loop holes available.

What's Your Golden Calf?

Because of my job working with our church's Preschool/Kindergarten and the age of my children I have a lot of interaction with kids, especially preschoolers. In my professional opinion, kids are hysterical! There always seems to be something going on at home or at school. I find myself chuckling and rolling my eyes at children on a daily basis.  For instance, my three year old son has discovered super heroes and has decided that he is "hooper hero" himself ("s" is not an important consonant to a three year old). For his birthday we had a cape made for him and now he runs around the yard singing, "Da da DAH!" while killing scary monsters. My other three are just as funny... and just as weird.

Besides being humorous, my children have taught me a lot. This especially goes for spiritual stuff. How do you explain crucifixion to a three year old? I realized something hadn't translated right when he exclaimed, "They killed baby Jesus!?!" Most importantly, they've taught me about forgiveness.  Punishment comes easy for most parents, but forgiveness can be a little harder. I know my kids are still young, but I've never refused to forgive them. My problem with forgiveness was in letting my kids know I forgave them. Let's be honest, adults often have problems rationalizing that people still like us when we hurt them. It's hard to look someone in the eye when you've caused them pain. Sometimes the friendship ends because we can't bear to be reminded of our failures. A preschooler in trouble deserves to be there. An elementary age kid ought to be brought up short and punished. A teenager needs to have their life flipped upside down. They need this so they will learn. However, the most important thing they need to learn is that they are loved and can be forgiven...no matter what.

Dog Doo and Pepé Le Pew

Last time we explored this fact; to completely understand God is impossible. While this is true, God has revealed Himself to us in ways we can understand. We may have to take some of his explanations on faith, but God hasn't kept Himself completely hidden from us. In Exodus 34:6-7 God actually describes himself to Moses, 

"And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, 'The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.'"

In these next few posts I want to look at these character traits of God; who He is by His own words. But today I want to look at all these together and combine them into one idea; holiness.