OK, I promise… I’ll do something traditional and sweet in one last post before Christmas.  Because… believe it or not, I’m not always strange.  I actually like the sweet, sentimental Christmas movies and songs.  But this is not one of those.  But it’s good… it’s a well, let’s call it a creative twist on the little drummer boy.

http://listener.bandcamp.com/track/dont-touch-the-drums-boy

Don’t touch the drums boy that’s the theme of the evening
and if I catch you near them you’ll get a real good beating
the man said to his face, said it wasn’t his place
but he didn’t listen, grabbed the sticks and began ripping
he started with the right and then with the left
and back again and again till it hurt his chest
and he drums out, it’s all he has to bring
he has no gifts for a king, no gold or rings
and he plays for justice, freedom and for life
in his hands he continues all throughout the night
and he’s just a boy, he’s a boy with no tomorrow
head filled with truths and lies and he borrows
he borrows the rhythm the 1 and the 2, and it speaks to you, it speaks to you
come and play they told him then, we need what you have to give
I have nothing for a king he said, nothing but this riff
and he played his drum for him, he played his best for him
he gave his gifts to him, he gave his best to him. oh no

and we wait for gold, for perfect hearts and homes
we wait until we can afford to come to clean to the throne
but that boy had it right, he knew what he had to give
it wasn’t big or expensive it was his best that he lived
and somehow he knew it, I don’t know how but he did
he figured it all out in his heart in his head
and I’ll tell the stories, it’s all I know how to do
while dust plays out the drums out for me and you
please give your best don’t think your gifts are small
that’s what he wants from us more than all
but we have to be brave and push right up to the front
even if people tell us that’s what no one wants
and in your heart you know what you have to give
this Christmas put others first in how you live
and give Christ the glory in this very special way
after all it’s his birthday have a happy holy day

I’ve actually kind of bummed myself out writing this and listening to the song.  I’m not bummed about the song.  It makes me smile, and challenges me to honor Jesus’ birth in a real way - the way I believe we should.  I guess I’m just a bit sad that I have to call this perspective on Christmas unconventional.  We have to be brave and push right up to the front.  Even if people tell us that’s what no one wants.

...and dwelt among us.

Think about that.  Really.  Stop reading and think about that for a few minutes.

Why are we not in awe of that.  Why are we more concerned and angry that store clerks say “Happy Holidays” in stead of “Merry Christmas”?  GOD became flesh and dwelt among us.  He made it clear what He cares about - in the law, the prophets, Jesus’ words, and letters to the early church.  He wants a crazy, 100%, self-sacrificial, pour yourself out kind of love for those around us.  Both those that deserve it and those who don’t.  The kind of love that would make GOD become flesh and live with and die for sinners like me.

We’ve missed the point.  I’ll give the benefit of the doubt to the Church - conceding that our intent is to honor Him.  But we’re not.  We’ve missed the point if our focus is on the specific word people use to label a holiday.  We’ve missed the point if our focus is on forcing our views on others - defending ourselves and our traditions against the world around us.  Jesus faced a world just as hostile to His message.  His response was love.  Love that looked past people’s faults and saw their needs.  Love that attacked others only when their attitudes and actions put culture, formalities, and religion ahead of loving and caring for people. When we make Jesus so compelling and so attractive by truly duplicating His love, that is when all the things we want to change will change.

...Or, what should we pray for, and how do we have faith that we’ll receive what we ask for?  This question came up in a recent conversation with a friend.  I was saying that I don’t think we really know what is best for us.  My five year-old likes candy.  That does not mean that a diet of candy is what is best for him.  He does not understand why it is not.  If he were to ask for the diet of his choice, he would choose a diet of candy.

I was telling him I’m convinced that we know as little about what is really good for us as my five year-old son.  That I like “candy” an easy life, relief from trials and troubles without pain and struggle.  But that we don’t grow without facing, battling, and overcoming resistance - that’s a universal law.  It’s in the Bible, it’s in every aspect of nature.  So the “candy” I want may not be what is best for me.  So my friend asks, “If you’re right how can I have faith for anything that I pray for?”.  Great question… one that I used to really struggle with but now feel completely at peace with.

Romans 8:31-32
What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

My take on this verse (and many others like it) is different than most that I have heard (imagine that, I have a minority and unusual take on things - a shocker, right?).  Anyway, my take on this is that I don’t NEED to know what is best for me. God knows.  And “how will He not also… graciously give us all things?”.  Really… how could we imagine that He wouldn’t.  I don’t need to make it happen.  I have complete trust and confidence in His plan for me, and His desire and ability to give me all good things according to His plan (hmm… sounds like a real definition of FAITH to me).  So I pray for His plan.  I ask Him to reveal His will and bring it about in my life.  I ask Him to help me overcome my presumptions, my nature, my desires, and replace them with His.

Oh… yeah, I almost forgot.  It seems that someone once asked Jesus this question as well.  What should we pray for?

Luke 11:1-4
One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”  He said to them, “When you pray, say:

“‘Father, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation.”

I know God’s plan for me is good.  I know too many Christians who take my general position but misuse it to justify resignation with a situation that is not God’s plan… “well, it must be God’s will… or God must be trying to teach me something…” That misses the mark entirely.  I am a fighter, and God expects that of all of us.  Yes, I belive God always has a plan for us to grow through adversity.  But you don’t build muscle mass by laying on a bench with the bar across your neck choking you.  You grow by resisting, fighting, and learning to rely on and trust Him to reveal His plan and His deliverance.  The other extreme says that I know there is no plan of God, no benefit, and no way God has any purpose for any suffering or difficulty in my life, so I’ll layout the specific plan and outcome I want to see and will pray for and claim that.  The problem there is that we don’t know specifics.  We know to fight, and we know expect His deliverance… but not OUR plan for deliverance.  I think that is a recipe for disappointment and a resulting lack of confidence in Him.  His plan is almost never ours… we think too small.. and then we don’t get our “candy” and we lose faith.  His plan is too big and too good for us to know in full.

So, how should we pray?  I’ll go with Jesus’ explicit instruction and ask God to reveal and execute His plan and His deliverance, and I won’t limit Him to the “candy” I want.  I know that’s crazy talk… but sometimes I just get carried away with thinking Jesus actually knew something.

Yes, I am posting a link to a short article on the American Express Business Forum… on a website devoted to following Jesus and serving others as He did.  How is it that a forum with purely secular and financial motivations gets it so much more right than so many who are teaching theology and religion?

http://www.openforum.com/articles/you-will-never-make-enough-money?extlink=em-openf-SBdaily

P.S.  I’ll get back to Luke someday, but I’ll probably drift to Christmas thoughts for a while after this.

It is truly a tragedy that Thanksgiving has been crowded out of focus between haloween and Christmas.  I believe the attitdue of being thankful is at the heart of following Jesus… and the lack of thankfulness is the first step on a path to self-destruction.  Possibly my favorite series of posts from the past is on that subject and is linked below…

Scroll down to the post from April 23, 2010 and read upward from there.  Happy Thanksgiving to all!  Personally, I believe that wish is redundant - true thanksgiving will always result in happines.

http://www.knowntome.net/index.php/site/C9/P91/

I’l let this one speak for itself… pretty powerful message about who we should associate with… where God’s focus is, and where ours should be.  My unscientific guess is that approximately 0% of us do this, especially that last part.  When’s the last time you wanted to have someone over for the evening and passed on inviting family or friends and instead found someone destitute and socially outcast instead?

Luke 14:8-14

“When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place, lest one more honorable than you be invited by him; and he who invited you and him come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,’ and then you begin with shame to take the lowest place.  But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’ Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you.  For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Then He also said to him who invited Him, “When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid.  But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind.  And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

Wow, hard to believe how much time can slide by when life gets a bit busy.  Sorry, I’ll get back to posting more regularly.

Luke 13:10-16 

Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.  And there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up.  But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.”  And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.

But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath; and he said to the crowd, “There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day.”

The Lord then answered him and said, “Hypocrite! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it?  So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?”

It seems to me that we have another verse where 100%, yes… 100% of professing Christians would say, “Of course, like… duh… of course Jesus did the right thing, and of course that is where my priorities are also.”

But yet beneath the surface, I believe that 100% of us, yes… 100% fall on the side of the ruler of the synagogue all too often in our daily lives.  Jesus chose compassion over the rules and traditions of men… in fact, He chose compassion over the rule of law in His religion.  How often do we let ourselves write people off, fail to respond to needs in real compassion, because the person in need of compassion looks, acts, or lives in a way that breaks our societal and religious rules and norms? 

I know I’ve done that, and I’m certain I still do despite my best efforts to suppress that aspect of my human nature.  Love and compassion ruled Jesus’ every action.  We can only do that through grace and through His spirit leading us.  But we need to become aware of our need to act as He did, and our need for His help to do the same.