Lion and Lambs

I borrowed a Guideposts magazine to read on the long ride out to the ballet Saturday. I came across something I had never seen before. Rick Warren was featured in this magazine as well, with the Purpose Driven Christmas. Since it was unique to me, I wanted to see if it was the same article, and it was not, which added to my interest. One difference is the one in Guideposts is a much shorter article and only stated three ‘purposes’ instead of the five featured in Ladies Home Journal. Also, the three purposes are different than in LHJ. I will just give you a quick highlight of them, but you can read the full article in the December issue of Guideposts.

First is to Keep It Simple. He talks about Jesus being born into some pretty meager circumstances, the son of two poor Galileans. His life was one of humility and simplicity so the congregation of his church, Saddleback, try to reflect the same Christlike attitude, keeping the focus of activities small and personal. They provide lots of opportunities for members to serve others during the holidays. By keeping your holidays simple you will be better able to serve those in need and celebrate with those you love.

Second is to Be There.

Our love shouldn’t be limited to just words and talk. It should show itself in action and focused attention: truly being there for the other person. One of our aims at Christmastime should be showing up in the lives of those we love. Attention says, “I value you enough to give you my most precious asset – my time.”

If you get nothing else, get this, the thing of which my soapbox is made:

When you give someone your time, you’re giving them a portion of your life that you’ll never, ever get back. You can always make more money, but you cannot make more time.

Third is to Give Gladly.

Giving is God’s antidote for materialism. Giving is a matter of willingness, not wealth; it’s attitude not amount.

That is deep, and should guide us, not only at Christmas, but all through the year. People have needs year round, not just during holidays.

He also wrote:

You don’t have to give something away to share it delightfully with others. For instance, you may have a garage full of tools that, as a gift, you make available to your neighbor, or an empty vacation spot that you allow family members to use. … The essence of Christmas is that we simply and humbly give of ourselves, just as God gave us His Son.

To sum it all up:

We can generously show up in the lives of others with our time, talents, money, possesions, and friendship – the gifts that, in a season of gift giving, matter more than all the others.

All I have to say is, “Better than ever.” My nieces and nephew danced in a lot more of the Nutcracker than ever. I held the tears all the way to the three minute mark! My sister was giggling at our nephews antics, when she turned to me, and of course the waterworks were flowing. I encourage you to participate if you have the chance to share a part of someones life like this, these moments cannot be recaptured.

Today is the day. Two of my nieces and one nephew (there are fourteen!) are in The Nutcracker! Anyone who has experienced little relatives performing knows that you do not go for the play, you go for the proud warm fuzzies you get when they arrive on stage. I am getting teary-eyed just thinking about it. In my mind they are still the “cute little kids” that jumped on my living room furniture, helped me decorate cookies, had a slumber party in my living room. I was told last night that the youngest one is nine! How can that be?? There it is…you turn around and they are grown. My nephew might still enjoy the opportunity to run around the house, but I would be hard pressed to get the teenage girls motivated for playing, perhaps it is time for the mall? Since these are the cutest nieces and nephew ever, I get to brag on them. Besides being incredible honor students, they will be teaching the teachers soon like their father, they also play musical instruments, participate in sports and dance, and are very involved at their church including serving. In the Nutcracker, a little girl dreams of being older, as most children do, while we as parents dream about the days when they were little. So soon I leave to watch the results of their hard work and dedication, and their parents sacrifice of time, much of which was spent driving, and I will do a little crying. The next time I turn around I will be crying at a wedding, so for today I do what is most important, make memories with my family, and let the “little ones” know how special they are, and let the whole family know how much they are loved, and how important they are in my life! I want them to know that they are worth my time. On days like this, I wish I could slow time down, then I could enjoy a lot more like this one.

A reminder and a hope…

That we won’t confuse eating as the meaning of the day, but rather that it would be a day of heart felt thanksgiving to our Father who gives all good gifts, and cherish the love that He lavishes on us. Then when giving thanks for and blessing the food…

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
NIV Ps 100:4-5

15 All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.
NIV 2 Cor 4:15

And not only for today…

and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, ” Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”
NASU Rev 7:11-12

Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; NKJV Eph 5:20

But most importantly, remember to….

Thank God for his Son-a gift too wonderful for words! NLT 2 Cor 9:15

Enjoy your food and love your family, and…oh yeah, may you have plenty of Turkey, too many mashed potatoes, and extra whipping cream for the pumpkin pie!

Has anyone out there read through “My Utmost for His Highest“? A couple of my friends were talking about different devotionals, and one of them brought up My Utmost. She said that it was a real ‘in your face’ kind of devotional. I thought, cool, I like the kind of lessons that really stretch and challenge you. So I got one, and at $4.oo, what a bargain. Now tell me just how much would you pay to get hit with a 2 x 4? Talk about in your face, they should make the cover woodgrain so at least you would see it coming! It does live up to the stretching and challenging though, so I would still recommend it, but you have been warned!

Make it a time for Cheerful Sharing. The final purpose in Rick Warren’s
artic le is something that can change other’s lives forever. I want to inc lude this part of his artic le in full because it is so important.

The first Christmas was announced by an angel this way: “I bring you good news of great joy for everyone!” So what’s the good news? That God loves you! That He cares about what happens in your life. That you are certainly not an accident. That you were made for a purpose and that you were created to last forever. It is the good news that God wants you to know and love Him in return. Jesus showed us how our past can be forgiven, how we can have a purpose for living and how we can have a home in heaven. If you’ve never understood it before, there’s not a better time than right now to check it out. During the Christmas season, you’ll find people are more open to discussing spiritual issues than at any other time of the year. So share the message with your family and friends. It’s the best news they’ll ever hear!

It has been a pleasure to share this with you. Remember, if you want to read the rest of the article in its entirety, it is in the December issue of Ladies Home Journal.

For a purpose driven Christmas, and generally a purpose driven life, Rick Warren says we should make time for “Joyful Worship”…

The words we most associate with Christmas are worship terms: Rejoice! Celebrate! Joy! Praise! Give Thanks! Peace on Earth!

He explains that we should make time for this during the holiday season to thank God for His Christmas gift to us, His Son. This is why I think we should remember this gift everyday, and rejoice and celebrate with joy, thanksgiving, and praise! To include this in your everyday activities he suggests we should perform those activities “as if we were doing them for God and carrying on a continual conversation with Him while we do them.” Also, very important, since this is the one time of year we can really worship in public due to the Christmas carols playing just about everywhere, he reminds us to allow the words of those songs to sink into our minds. And “Come Let us Adore Him, Christ the Lord.”

Michael just posted an update on little Hayden, and it is not very positive. God provided a miracle in that Hayden didn’t die when the life support was disconnected, and she needs lots of prayers now that God would continue to work the miracle of life in this sweet little girl. Prayer for her family would be good too, as they will need a lot of strength to face the days ahead. Thank you for caring.

Everyone can breathe again. My sister and I finally got to do IKEA. And yes I mean DO it, IKEA is more than shopping, it is an experience.

Of course we started in the restaurant to build up our energy for the three hour (ooh, did I say that out loud?) shopping trail. How fast can you do 342,000 square feet? The restaurant is on the second floor with a whole wall of windows to look out across…okay the freeway, but that beats the parking lot. They serve lots of Swedish food, from meatballs w/ gravy and red potatoes to lignon berry juice. The enormous apple streudel looked too dangerous for me. After three hours of shopping it is time to eat again!! or you can buy several of the food offerings and much more in their marketplace and take them home… if you want to share, but don’t forget the gravy!

What a fun day we had, silly me I put the sunshades up in my car and by the time we finished it was dark and chilly anyway. And with plastic, we didn’t even lighten up our wallets. Ha ha

Now we need to go back and think Christmas, or meatballs, which thankfully we no longer have to wait for that trip to California to delight our tastebuds…and to splurge.

Okay, I am hoping you all formulated an answer in your head since only one posted a comment with an idea. The first gift of Christmas as written by Richard Paul Evans and narrated by my honey ‘John Boy’, oh sorry, I mean Richard Thomas:

I sat down in the rocker in front of the illuminated Christmas tree and I lay my head in my hands. Somewhere between the angel and Mary’s house I had figured it out. The first gift of Christmas. It just came. It came to my heart. The first gift of Christmas was love. A parent’s love. Pure as the first snows of Christmas. For God so loved His children that He sent His son, that we might someday return to Him.

In the epilogue he writes:

More than giving, more than believing, for these are mere manifestations. The sacred contents of that box are a parent’s pure love for a child, manifested first by a Father’s love for all His children, as He sacrificed that which He loved most and sent His son to earth on that first Christmas day so long ago.

I HIGHLY recommend to everyone to read this book if you can. It is only 86 pages, a very quick read, but oh so powerful. I think I have “read” all of his books now, on audiotape, and each one is excellent and really holds interest. He also has a book about how the writing of the Christmas Box came to be, some of which is on his website.

Now for key purpose number 3: Helpful Service.

Rick writes:

Everyone knows the spirit of Christmas is giving. But the best gifts are often ones you can’t wrap in paper. They are gifts of service-where we offer our time, our talents, our connections, our ideas, or our energy to serve those in need around us.

He encourages us to look for opportunites to do simple acts of kindness during this season. I think that is a great challenge for whoever accepts it. I know that for many of you this is a way of life, but for Christmas, maybe we can stretch a little bit and do at least one thing that we wouldn’t normally do, maybe something that costs us a little more.