This music video was made by a fellow youth pastor in California. If you have ever been to or led an overnighter, then you most likely won’t do it again–I denounced them years ago. Enjoy.

It’s the sure sign that the well is dry. When the blogger goes to blogging for the simple sake of blogging something. It’s pitiful–even pathetic. But here I am. Blogging.

Why the obligatory blog? Or shall we say “oblogatory”?

It’s really quite sad. The reason–shame. Pure and simple.
I’ve looked at other blogs and find mine stale and lacking. So, what do I do? I buckle down, take a deep breath, and come what may: produce something…ANYTHING.

See that “x” in the upper right hand corner? (Or the small red dot in the left corner for all you hippy mac users)
Go ahead. I deserve it.

Or stay. And join me while I pound out my thoughts with the sole company of Jon & Kate + 8 warbling in the background. Oops…commercial now. That gecko again.

Okay, Jerry. Enough. Put down something with substance.
My thoughts lately? How can the God who claims to be the same yesterday, today, and forever; the self-proclaimed “Alpha and Omega” do anything new? How can the thing I see Him doing all around me and even within me really be the “new thing” He says he’s doing..and has been doing…and will be doing? I think it’s because it is His character, His attributes, His personality that are constant; not His ways. His ways today are not (or at least do not seem to be) His ways of yesterday. Or last week. Or last year. He seems to be an ever-moving paradox of constant sameness that is never able to be figured out, pinned down, or defined. He moves in mysteries, He delights in confounding. But not in a way that seeks to frustrate those who would seek Him. It is the way I play hide and seek with my kids. Am I hiding? You better believe it. But the point of hiding is the joy of finding, isn’t it?

And He shocks, doesn’t He? How many times have I heard from other followers of Jesus, “I know I shouldn’t be surprised by what God did…but I am.” I think we SHOULD be surprised by what God does. Even when it’s the hundredth time He’s done it–because who are we to be interacting with this God at all? Any hint of familiarity between us and God can ever only flow in one direction. He knows us precisely and eternally. We know Him barely today and not much at all tomorrow. We walk with Him and find Him as astounding as when He spoke a word and there—–an ocean.

But it is in the mystery, the shocks, the unexpecteds, the wow-He-did-it-agains, that we can take the most comfort and strength. For it is His great joy to lead us in a way that is wonder-making. It is His very character to create awe with each movement. And it is ours to enjoy it.

Before you read this, read the blog immediately below this one. I wrote it a few days ago, before I knew anything that happened (in what I’m about to tell you) happened.

You back? Good. Keep reading.

Friday afternoon, I’m sitting at my desk at work when I get an email from my wife. She learned about an event happening at a local church called a “Manger Build”. And just as the name implies, it is an event designed for Dads to bring their kids and together build a manger.

I was immediately excited about the idea and almost as fast resolved in my mind that this manger build is what my Saturday morning (the very next day) would hold.

I came home and excitedly told my 3 oldest kids about it–Madison, Macy and Crews. Crews was almost immediately uninterested. But the girls were all about it. So, Saturday morning we headed out to Southside Baptist Church, found the room where the hammering was happening, and got started.

Let me say right here that another thing I learned Saturday is that my girls were born to swing a hammer! Neither of them had ever driven a nail before, I was totally expecting to have to teach them the finer points of grip and balance and all that stuff. They took to it like a fish to water! It did my heart good!

But more than that, I was deeply reminded that it’s the manger, not the tree that ought to be serve as the centerpiece to Christmas.

And as we built that manger together, took it home, and placed it next to our Christmas tree I was quickly reminded and thrust in my imagination to THE manger. The one that held the Messiah. I was reminded so strongly that God came into this rough cradle, this feed trough, for nothing more than love–love that would drive him to the cross–for the sole purpose of forgiving me.

And in perfect innocence, and a love for Jesus, as soon as we got home my girls wrapped up one of their dolls, “Sarah” who for now will be our Jesus.

Forgive me for not writing more. I know there are at least 2 people on the entire internet who have read this blog of mine.

Forgiveness, it seems to me is the most potent of all mental, emotional, social, and spiritual transactions that can take place. Nothing else has the power to do what true forgiveness can do. Forgiveness is something we are all in need of. No one who might ever read this (inluding the 2) can ever live very long at all without needing forgiveness for something.

It’s been said that to forgive is to set a prisoner free, only to realize that the prisoner was you.

Forgiveness was/is the chief purpose of the earthly life of Christ. And with Christmas a mere 5 days away, it seems fitting to sit a moment and soak in the reality of that fact. With all the attention on the manger, we ought to think about why the manger, why the advent, why the human birth of the Son of God, wherever it happened, was necessary? We give lots of attention to stars, and shepherds, and a virgin, and an inn, and angels, and wisemen, and gifts. But why would God stoop so low? Ironically enough, it’s quite easy for me (especially at this time) to focus so much on the birth of Christ that I literally miss the reason for the birth of Christ. And the reason was and is for the act of forgiveness. Nothing more, nothing less.

We’re told clearly in the Bible that Jesus came “to seek and to save that which was lost.” But that “lostness” is due to our need for forgiveness. It is we who are the offenders. It is humans who are the selfish ones. It is God who is selfless enough to give up His Son for the likes of me.

I’ve had recent situations in my life where forgiveness was necessary in both directions; both giving and receiving. And how anyone can withhold something given by God so freely is beyond my current ability to understand. When I grasp my need to be forgiven by God and find that He is more than willing time and time again to pour out that forgiveness, then I find that giving that forgiveness to those who need it from me is more than a pleasure; it is the very reflection of God.

This Christmas season, my prayer for myself and my family is that we will look beyond the manger to the reason that a child was placed in it at all.

The Sunday paper. Our next door neighbors get it delivered every week. It was just a newspaper. But yesterday, it became the centerpiece of a powerful reminder from God.

Yesterday was Sunday. My wife was looking out the window, watching a lady out for a walk as she approached our next door neighbor’s driveway, where their Sunday newspaper was. The paper was laying on the ground in the middle of their driveway. As the woman passed by, she kicked the paper out onto the edge of the road and kept walking. That was strange. My wife quickly surmised that this woman’s plan was to steal the paper on her way back. After the initial “kick” of the paper, the woman looked back over her shoulder at our neighbor’s house a number of times. Weird.

After she passed, my wife immediately began to think out loud, as to what she should do about this. Clearly, she is not one to sit idly by and watch a crime take place.

My wife is a superhero. I’m not kidding.

I was content to simply watch the drama unfold; to watch what exactly this walking woman’s plan was. My wife? Not so big on just watching. My wife sprung into action with an unmistakable “she must be stopped” look in her eyes.

So, the initial plan was to walk out, pick up the newspaper and walk it up to the neighbor’s front porch, out of the reach of paper-snatcher. But just as she walked outside, the woman had made her way back and was now only steps away from the newspaper, still lying right where she kicked it.

Just as she passed our house, on the way to the newspaper, my wife walked out the front door in a none-too-obvious “Somebody’s watching” noise-making fashion. Startled, the woman looked at my wife, looked back down at the ground, and kept on walking….newspaperless.

Ah, my wife the vigilante. It’s no wonder I’m head over heels for this woman.

Justice. It’s what people want to see. When we see injustice, we wince, we boil, and sometimes we even act; springing into action to make the unjust just.

What my wife did reminded me that as Christ-followers, we’re to look EVERYWHERE for injustice and not merely be spectators (like yours truly), but activists. We are to be those who are actively involved in setting the wrong right. We are not called to sit in the upstairs window (like I did), but rather engage the injustice and put a stop to it (like my wife did).

Amos 5:24 says it well:
“But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

Maybe that cloak of righteousness that Christ puts on us is meant to double as a cape.

Up, up and away.

How does someone become a food critic? The only requirements seem to be 1) have a mouth, and 2) complain about what goes in it.